Ice Queen of the Century
by Black Gargie
Summary: Clover has gotten herself infected with a type of virus unlike any other, and one simple glitch might cost her her life. What is this terrible disease? Why was only Clover infected? Read to find out!
1. The Mission

A/N: I am a super big fan of the Totally Spies and I have been waiting for this moment all my life!!! I am so glad that this site has finally come up with a fanfic section of Totally Spies. You won't regret what you're about to read! ^_^

Disclaimer: I do not own Totally Spies and its characters, although I do wanna become one of them.

                                                ICE QUEEN OF THE CENTURY

            "Oh man! Why does our last exam for the day have to be science? I can't even remember the formula of water!"

            Ours truly, the gals of Totally Spies were having their mid-term exam and were on their way to the lab of their Beverly Hills High for their practical test, which is the last Science exam to complete the paperwork. Alex was practically pulling a 100m long face as she was not exactly the brightest student in science.

            "Don't worry, Alex," the ever genius Sam said as they walked down the corridor, getting closer and closer towards their destination. "It's just an experiment. You'll do fine. I'm sure you'll pull through."

            "Yeah, Alex," Clover replied jovially. "This is our last exam and after we're done, we can do some unfinished business: shopping for the latest Madeline cosmetics and get a brand new dress for next month's Spring Season Dance!"

            Alex and Sam sweatdropped when they saw that the sparkling puppy eyes of Clover's were acting up again. She is always predictable when it comes to dances and contests—anything to do with attracting boys or finding fresh new blood she had missed. They were really surprised at what a flirt she was and yet still was able to stay alive without worrying that there might be vengeful guys out there who might want to get back at her.

            As soon as they entered the lab, Clover was suddenly attacked by a strong spray of vapour. Her eyes watered seriously and she coughed like mad as her lungs had taken in some of the stinky vapour. Alex and Sam thought their worries were coming true—that one of the vengeful boys had got back at her—but a naughty cackle proved them otherwise.

            "Like my latest experiment? I've worked all night for this little concoction. Could've saved some for my little bratty brother, yet I feel so happy just to waste it all on you. Nya ha ha ha ha~!"

            "Mandy~!!!" Clover growled between gritted teeth, clenching her fists and ready to give the bratty I'm-Miss-Popular girl a good sock in the eye.

            "Ugh! Keep away from me, Clover! The stink gas I just gave you is gonna make you smell like you bathed in a garbage dump," Mandy put on an exaggerated disgust look on her face and flapping her away as if she was nothing but a common fly. Clover couldn't stand it anymore. She had mentally abused Mandy with her imagination just to control her temper and release herself out of utmost anger but this was too much. The stink gas really stank just like Mandy said and everyone was giving her a disgust look and worse, it ruined her blonde bangs. She jumped onto Mandy ready to claw and gouge her eyes out. If Alex and Sam hadn't pulled her away and if Mandy's henchwomen hadn't dragged her up in time, Clover would probably have succeeded.

            "Miss Clover, if you do not learn how to control your temper, you are asked to leave this class," the science professor said with his hands on his waist. "Go and freshen yourself up. You are excused from this practical exam until you smell a little decent. You may take it later in the afternoon."

            "But…But that's not fair!" Clover whined. "Mandy started it, and I have big plans at the mall this afternoon!"

            "I will deal with Mandy personally. Now go and clean yourself up before you have to send in the SWAT team to get rid of the smell."

            Now it was Clover's turn to pull a 100m long face as she left the lab, leaving relieved sighs and sniggers from other students—including Mandy and her henchwomen—at her wake. Seeing their best friend sulking like that made Alex and Sam feel really bad. They both turned to the professor and put on their best sympathy faces.

            "Err…Prof, can we be excused too? I mean Clover might need our help in cleaning up the stink on her face," Sam said.

            "Yeah, Prof. I mean it really stinks and I don't think she could get rid of it alone," Alex chided in. "Anyway, you do want her to smell better, right? We'll all take the exam together in the afternoon."

            The professor stared at them disapprovingly for a moment before sighing and said, "Very well. You girls are excused too. Be sure to be back here for your practical exam this afternoon at 1 o'clock."

             Sam and Alex thanked the professor before rushing to Clover who was heading towards the girls' toilet. Clover sulked in front of the mirror as her blonde bangs fell lazily over her forehead, wet with the stink gas and its nasty odour. Sam and Alex tried to make her feel better.

            "Aww, cheer up, Clover, it's not the end of the world," Alex said as she patted Clover's back, wrinkling her nose as the smell shot up into her nostrils. "Mandy sure got her mischief and nastiness to the next level."

            "Not the end of the world?" Clover asked. "This is my hair we're talking about! My hair is everything! With these stinky golden tresses, I'll never get any dates for the Spring Season dance next month! My life is ruined! You should've let me get at Mandy! This is too much!"

            "Relax, Clover," Sam said, forcing a smile through the thick bad odour of her hair. "I'm sure we'll get it nice and clean in no time. Let's try some of the hand-wash solution."

            "What?!" Clover shrieked in horror. "Hand-wash for my hair?? My perfect hair is only tolerable to Silky Smooth Shampoo and Conditioning! You're asking me to scalp my golden tresses here!!"

            "Do you want to clean yourself up so that we can finish our final piece of exam and go to our favourite shopping mall for your Spring Season Dance outfit or not?" Sam was getting irritable at Clover's whining and complaining over her hair.

            Clover had no choice but to oblige. She made a mental note that after the exam, she was going to give herself a decent shower from head to toe before she go anywhere else. As she lowered her head towards the sink and Sam and Alex were about to start squeezing hand-wash solution to wash their girlfriend's hair, they were suddenly sucked into a large hole opening in the sink and found themselves falling down a long chute.

            Needless to say, it's the girls' cue to go on one of their missions again.

            The girls immediately fall onto the ever familiar cushion of the WOOHPS right in front of the ever familiar head of the org, Jerry. Before getting right down to business, Jerry clicked his fingers and immediately, five ladies in nurse-like uniforms appeared and rushed over to Clover with loads of gadgets in their hands. Before she knew it, Clover's hair was shampooed, conditioned, massaged, blow-dried and combed back into her perfect self, minus the nasty smell.

            "My…My hair! My hair! It…It doesn't stink anymore! I'm not a human skunk anymore! My beautiful hair is back!" Clover squealed in delight as she marveled in front of the mirror held up by one of the nurse-like ladies. Jerry smiled in satisfaction.

            "I had a head start on things. That was a nasty thing for that Mandy friend of yours to do," Jerry said as he turned on the big screen behind him. "Now let's get down to business."

            The big screen came into focus and showed the map of the whole world. He clicked on a spot somewhere in the north side of Dakota and it continued to enhance until it showed some sort of a health lab. There were doctors and nurses and attendants and also a few animals which were evidently test subjects. Clover was the first to ask.

            "Um, Jerry, why are we looking into this medical lab fest?"

            "This is where your mission goes," Jerry, who was already used to Clover's outspoken attitude, replied. "This is the Health Research Lab of North Dakota and right now they were trying to experiment with some sort of drug that cures severe depression or such. The people from the Health Research Lab wouldn't disclose further information about the drug—very hush-hush and all. At about 3 a.m. this morning, someone snuck into the lab and stole the drug somehow. Security was very, very tight and no one can go in or out without a specially designed pass card. They suspect that it might be an inside job."

            "Obviously," Sam replied. "But such theft should be handled by the police, why are we doing the job?"

            "Like I said, this is a very hush-hush business and they would not want some common people who might open their mouths once too many times to tell on them before they have finally done testing the drug and send it out to the market," Jerry replied solemnly. "We're the only ones they can trust."

            "Well, that's what we spies are for!" Alex said, letting out a 'Peace' sign.

            "Your job is to go to the lab and search for clue, bring in as much hints as you can find to me and get the perpetrator as soon as possible. Now for your gadgets you'll have," Jerry clicked on a remote control and out came a table filled with gadgets as usual, and Jerry picked them up one by one and explained, "Shocker lip-balm—perfect if you're attacked at night in the middle of a dark alley; your usual jetpack backpacks, magneto high-heeled boots, heat-sensor and finger-print scanner sunglasses, laser hair brooch and our latest model TINY TIM."

            "Tiny Tim?" the 3 girls wrinkled their noses. "What the heck is Tiny Tim? Isn't that a fairytale character or some kind?"

            "No," Jerry said as he clicked another button on the remote control and out came a jet-like sports car. While the girls' eyes sparkled at the magnificent sparkling steel-blue colour and high-tech built, Jerry explained, "TINY TIM stands for Titanium-Induced Nuclear Yard Thundering Invincible Manoeuvre (made that up ^_^;), a latest technology that can both fly up in the air at 500 miles/hr and drive on land at 100 miles/hr. Auto-drive or auto-pilot available."

            Within minutes in their red, green and yellow spy outfits, our Totally Spies got into TINY TIM and were driving towards North Dakota Health Research Lab.

A/N: What'll be the girls' mission this time? Reviews plz! This is me first fic, so be kind!  


	2. The Infection

A/N: Now that we've got into the mission, let's check out the scenes of Dakota!

Disclaimer: I do not own Totally Spies and its characters, although I do wanna become one of them.

                                                ICE QUEEN OF THE CENTURY

            After a long flight up in the sky and drive through the city, the girls soon reached their destination: a building of white bearing the name 'North Dakota Health Research Lab'. The girls told the receptionist their reason to be there and the receptionist called for a few guards to lead them to the base lab just right down at the basement.

            As they went in, they were sure that this place was where the real work was done. There were dozens upon dozens of scientific gizmos filling up the whole place and there were loads of animal cages filled with animals that were ready for any kind of animal testing on their latest drugs or so. While the girls (especially little genius Sam) feasted their eyes upon everything there is in display, the guards continued to lead them until they entered an office where an old man greeted them.

            "Good day, spies," the old man shook the girls' hand. "I'm Prof. William Gus, the head of this research lab. I'm the one who contacted Jerry at WOOHPS. We really need your help; you're the only higher authority we could trust."

           "Why don't you show us the crime scene, Prof. William?" Sam said. Prof. William nodded and dismissed the guards, leading them to the far back of the lab. He used his pass card to open the door and did a retinal scan through the scanner at the right side of the door. As the door opened, the room revealed a stand where the drug was supposed to be.

            "There you have it, spies," he said as he gestured them to the stand. "We had the drug on this stand, fully secured under lock and key, that is, until now. We created this drug so that we can totally eliminate severe depression and cure them entirely. The normal drugs could only keep them in control, but this drug was going to revolutionize all depression drugs in the world. No one would ever have to suffer this emotional disorder and can be free from drug-dependence. A pill a day for a week and you're no more a walking zombie anymore."

            "Cool," Alex said. "That would definitely work great if I ever get sad about failing my mid-term."

            "Oh, please, Alex, don't get started," Clover said with a frown. "That'll only remind me of Mandy's stupid stink bomb experiment and this afternoon's practical exam. Let's just get this over and done with."

            The girls got into work. They checked around the perimeter and looked for clues. They put on their heat-sensor and fingerprint scanner sunglasses and turned it into fingerprint mode to search for any fingerprints left behind. No luck; there wasn't any fingerprints lying around for them to see. As they took off their sunglasses, they saw that there was a small piece of torn garment on it. Sam picked it up, slipped it into her Com-powder and called Jerry at the same time. While she was doing it, Alex turned to Prof. William and asked some questions.

            "You told Jerry that you suspect that this theft could be done by someone inside the lab. Who do you suspect it is?"

            "We have no clue," Prof. William said. "I've sent some of the guards you just saw to check everyone of my staff that is involved in this drug experiment and we even went to their houses to interrogate them and check their houses but we couldn't find anything. We have no proof to pin-point anybody."

            "What about the cards?" Clover asked. "I mean, if you can't find anyone inside the lab who might be the thief, then it has to be someone outside who has the card."

            "Unfortunately, that would be impossible. This pass card is specially designed for members of the lab. It is colour-coded, configuration-coded and ID-coded. There is no way you can duplicate it because we made it as complicated as possible."

            "Unless that thief 'borrowed' the card from the owner," Clover muttered.

            "We have thought about it, but it is also impossible, because retinal scan is needed even if you want to enter this place or almost everywhere here."

            "So I see," Alex remembered the retinal scan Prof. William did before entering this secret room.  

            Meanwhile, Sam has got through and was talking to Jerry. The other girls moved towards her to hear any further instructions from their head.

            "Hello, girls," Jerry's face appeared in the screen of the Com-powder. "I've just checked the piece of torn garment Sam had scanned through the Com-powder and the analysis showed that it happens to be made from the same material the members of North Dakota Health Research Lab. This is, as proven, an inside job."

            "But Prof. William said that they couldn't find any evidence to pinpoint anyone that were involved in this experiment," Clover replied.

            "And it couldn't be an outsider either," Alex said her share of information. "Their pass cards are specially designed and unable to duplicate. And the room only approves people who are involved in this experiment to enter with their retinal scan."

            "I see," Jerry replied thoughtfully. "Well, is there anything else you have found?"

           "No, unfortunately," Sam replied. "We couldn't find any fingerprints or anything else suspicious or out of place either. Not even a footprint. Whoever it is, this guy is good."

            "Alright, girls," Jerry said. "We'll have to put this case on hold for a while. Why don't you go back to school before your professor starts flunking you out of science?"

            "Oh no, the practical test!" Alex exclaimed, snapping back to reality. "We promised we'll be in the lab at 1 o'clock!"

            "We still have 10 more minutes," Sam said as she looked at her watch. "Come on, girls, let's go!"

            "Oh yeah!" Clover squealed with glee. "After that it's heavy duty shopping!"

                                                                        *

            "I'm glad that you girls are able to make it."

            Sam, Alex and Clover were barely minutes away from being late for their practical test. The professor was looking at them disapprovingly through his thick glasses and motioned them to take their places at their lab table. It was an individual kind of work, so the girls had to stand at separate tables.

            "Right," the professor said as soon as the girls were at their places. "We shall begin the test. There are the question papers on your table. There are 3 experiments written on the papers. Choose one, and don't peek. You can start right now."

            The girls picked up their question papers and scanned through the questions. They made their choices and started their experiment with the lab ingredients and utensils right before them. Alex, the not so bright one, was beginning to scratch her head. Sam has already started mixing and matching her stuff. Clover was getting started, but her eyes were still seeing red just thinking about what Mandy had done to her that mid-morning. 

            "That darn Mandy!" Clover muttered to herself as she started pouring hydrochloric acid carefully into her test tube. "What exactly do I have against her? She has been going up and down my nerves and constantly taunting and raving at me and my friends! What does she have that we don't? We're equally as beautiful as her, we're equally popular as her, we're getting as much boys as she does and we're as great as she is—no, maybe even better than she is! Further more, we are highly-secret government spies! Who is she? Just a common Miss Popular of Beverly Hills High, nothing else! Why is she looking down on us while _we_ are the ones far more superior than she is? Just you wait, Mandy, just you wait! Someday, somehow, I'll…"

            Her mutterings stopped abruptly when she suddenly felt her heart skip a beat. The heartbeat skip slowly turned into a gradually painful heartburn. She could feel her simple lunch of strawberry yogurt and cocoa latte she had together with her friends in TINY TIM on the way to school was going up her throat. Her heartburn got worse and worse until she had to drop her experiment and double over on the cold lab floor. She felt herself suffocating, unable to breathe, and she knew that it had nothing to do with the smell from the lab chemicals.

            There was something wrong with her. Something very, very wrong.

            Her girlfriends were so shocked that they couldn't care less if their experiment was complete or not. They stopped whatever they were doing and rushed over to Clover who was already on the floor clutching her neck, trying to breathe. The professor noticed what was going on and dialed 911 on his cellphone. Sam and Alex quickly carried her out of the lab to the corridor to give her more air. Clover started coughing blood while she still struggled desperately for air. Tears flowed out of her eyes. She was suffering terribly.

            "Hang in there, Clover, hang in there," Sam said, trying more to calm herself than Clover. "The professor has already called 911. Just hang in there."

            "Yeah, Clover," Alex said, her copper-brown eyes close to tears. "You're the strongest member in our team. You can't just die! You gotta hang on!"

            "The paramedics will be here soon," the professor said as he hung up his cellphone. "Let's take her to the sick room first and try to give her some oxygen. I think there's a breathing mask and an oxygen tank in that sick room. It might do her some good."

            Sam and Alex nodded and carried their girlfriend all the way to the sick room. The nurse in charge was shocked at Clover's suffocating and bleeding condition and quickly fitted the breathing mask over Clover's nose and mouth and turned on the breathing mask.

            Throughout the hustle and bustle, Clover slowly slipped deeper and deeper into unconsciousness…

A/N: What has happened to Clover? What kind of sickness has she got herself into? The suspense continues. Reviews plz! 


	3. The Virus

A/N: Now let's get into the bottom of Clover's sudden sickness.

Disclaimer: I do not own Totally Spies and its characters, although I do wanna become one of them.

                                                ICE QUEEN OF THE CENTURY

            "I have never seen anything like this ever before."

            Clover, who was horribly sick and was rushed into the hospital in the nick of time before the effects of the breathing mask from Beverly Hills High sick room ran out (they didn't have much oxygen left by the time the paramedics arrived), was now in the ICU with her breathing mask on and loads of tubes and needles stuck through her arms. There were loads of other medical gadgets surrounding her and she didn't seem much of a good state, although her colour has come back.

            "What is your interpretation of this thing she's carrying?" Sam asked, her eyes filled with worry.

            "I can't make out a head or toe of it. It was happening too fast that we couldn't figure out what she was infected with," the doctor replied, his face contorted into an expression that tells the girls that his expertise has been challenged and his pride has been wrecked. "But we will have to keep her here and run some tests to see whether we can figure out what she has."

            "Yeah," Alex muttered a little too loud in earshot. "If we have forever to wait."

            The doctor gave her an Are-you-questioning-my-expertise look but answered in a forced reassuring voice, "Don't worry. I'm a doctor, and I will find out what has happened to your friend."

            "Can we go in and visit her, I mean, she's our best friend and all," Sam tried to make things less cloudy for the both of them, especially at a critical time like this.

            "I don't see why not," the doctor replied. "But only for a few minutes. We'll have to take her in for testing later."

            Alex looked distastefully at the doctor as he left and pulled out her tongue behind his back. As soon as he was out of earshot, she grumbled at Sam, "That doctor seriously needs a wife! I don't think he'll ever find anything that is causing Clover so much pain, since he couldn't find out in the first place. We gotta do something or she'll die!"

            "Well, we are allowed to visit her," Sam replied, taking out her Com-powder. "So let's do a little medical research of our own."

            Sam and Alex, with silent footsteps, slowly walked into Clover's ward, trying to keep their presence to nil as they didn't want to wake her up and cause her to become sick again. They stared at Clover's sleeping face—so peaceful and innocent, as if she had never been sick at all and that what had happened just now at Beverly Hills High was just an illusion. They prayed hard that their girlfriend—their best friend in the whole wide world—would get better and have no more attacks just like this. They looked at each other and nodded; the time was right to investigate her illness. Just as Sam was about to hold out her Com-powder towards the sleeping Clover, it suddenly rang. Sam quickly opened the Com-powder so that the ring wouldn't alert Clover.

            "Hello, girls," it was the ever familiar Jerry, munching a cookie with one hand and a glass of milk in another. "I have received news that there has been an accident at school. Anything wrong, girls?"

            "Jerry! Your call almost woke Clover up!" Alex hissed, looking back at Clover from time to time to see if Clover had stirred. So far, so good.

            "Sorry, Alex," Jerry apologized. "Have I got you girls at a bad timing?"

            "No, Jerry, it's OK," Sam replied wryly. Jerry could tell that something was wrong by the look on his girls' faces.

            "Sam? Alex? What is wrong with Clover?"

            Sam and Alex told everything that had happened at the lab, explaining every gory detail they could remember. They were almost in the verge of tears when they've finished—they were really worried that Clover was going to die. Her suffering didn't seem very light at all. They were so scared of losing her.

            "Oh my," Jerry replied, dropping his half-eaten cookie into his milk in shock (I find that scene very amusing in one of the Totally Spies series). He tried to collect himself over this bizarre news he got. It took him about 10 minutes to finally get his voice back, "So, has the doctor found anything wrong with her yet?"

            "So far they couldn't figure out what was wrong with her," Sam replied, wiping the tear off the corner of her eye. "They say they will run some tests on her and find out what's wrong or what virus she is carrying but…I'm afraid that it might be too late for Clover."

            "My sentiments exactly," Jerry replied. "Use the Com-powder to take a sample of her saliva and her breath. I might try to find this out myself."

            Sam and Alex got to work. Alex took out a cotton bud from her purse and took off Clover's breathing mask slowly. She opened her mouth slightly and rubbed the cotton bud against her tongue to get her saliva. She laid the sodden cotton bud on the scanner of her Com-powder while Sam used her Com-powder and brought it close to Clover's mouth. She turned on the sensor and captured some of the breath Clover has exhaled before replacing the breathing mask carefully back on. Jerry got the samples from the other line and rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

            "Hmm…this is more work than I thought," Jerry replied. "I'll check on this first. When Clover's fit to walk, call me and I will send a jet to pick you all up. We'll do a more detailed examination on Clover at WOOHPS HQ then."

            "Right, Jerry. We'll keep in touch," Sam replied before closing her Com-powder. Alex did the same.

            "Oh, I hope Clover would pull through," Alex whined. "I can't bear her to be out of the team because of her condition. It'll ruin her, and it'll ruin us, the team!"

            "She'll pull through," Sam replied, giving Alex a reassuring hug. "She's a fighter. I'm sure she'll be back on her feet in no time at all."

            Secretly, she hoped she was right.

                                                                                    *

            Clover was in a huge spacious lab-like room. She was discharged from ICU after seeing that there was nothing else wrong with her, although the doctor promised Clover that he will contact her as soon as he finds out what was she infected with (A headstrong guy, I must say!). After a couple of days at home resting, Clover decided to volunteer to go for the testing as soon as the girls were given a complementary practical Science test so that they wouldn't flunk their mid-term exam. She was too anxious about what kind of sickness she got herself into to be sitting around brooding without anything to do at home, especially when she was treated like an ICU patient even at home. Sam called for Jerry and immediately the WOOHPS org. sent in a helicopter to pick the girls up at the park. 

            Right now, in the lab-like room, Clover was being poked and prodded by the medical members of the WOOHPS. Jerry, Sam and Alex were looking from the other side of the room through the two-way mirror (is that what they call it: a glass that can show you the inside but the person you're looking at doesn't know that you're looking at them?), watching as the medical team took blood samples, blood pressure, DNA sample; checked her heartbeat, her responses, her eyes, her ears, into her mouth and almost everywhere. As the restless little spy she was, Clover was beginning to think that this might take forever.

            Finally, after which _seemed_ like forever, Clover was allowed to leave. She trotted out of the lab and went towards her girlfriends, her face tired of all the tests and experiments. Sam and Alex could see that not a huge amount of homework or exams could match this kind of tiring experience. Jerry went towards the whacked up Clover and rubbed her back.

            "Sorry if this has tired you. We need all the necessary information from your body so that we can determine what have you got and whether if it is lethal or curable."

            "It's alright, Jer," Clover moaned, then slumped and fell like a falling tree onto Sam and Alex's lap. "I'm just as curious as you are about what have I got. What'll I do for a nice and warm fluffy bed right now so that I can just fall onto and not bother a thing!"

            "Don't worry, Clover, it'll be all over in no time," Jerry replied. "I'm sure it's something poisonous you have smelt that caused that massive seizure. We'll find a cure for it and you'll be up and about within a couple of days."

            Deep down inside, Jerry and Clover, along with Sam and Alex weren't too sure whether it's as simple as that.

                                                                                    *

            The girls were soon back again in the WOOHPS HQ at about a week or so. As usual, they were doing their shopping at their favourite mall to buy their dresses for the upcoming Spring Season Dance, and needless to say they were in the ladies' room when WOOHPS suddenly 'whooped' them in. They were sure that when they reached the HQ, they would be greeted with one of Jerry's corny jokes again before getting right down to business, but this time, no corny jokes. He seemed very, very serious indeed. The girls were quite taken aback that they have forgotten all about how annoyed they were in the middle of their shopping.

            "Girls, I have a very serious announcement to make," Jerry broke the ice after a long 5 minutes of silence.

            "Uh, yeah, we can see that," Clover broke out of her daze.

            "What seems to be the problem, Jerry?" Alex asked, worried. "You never looked this serious before. Is everything alright, Jerry?"

            "No, to tell the truth, everything is not alright. It's regarding about Clover."

            "What?! Me?!" ours truly the emotional member of the group squealed in horror. "What's wrong with me? Is that I've flunk the mid-terms? Is that my hair or my face or my figure has gone bad? Is it that I'm off the team? Is it…?"

            "Calm down, Clover, calm down!" Jerry began to look horrified now. "Don't get acted up now, Clover! Your calm state of emotion is the most important thing to keep you alive now!"

            "My what?" Clover asked, a little bit calmed but still surprised. The girls looked back at Jerry curiously.

            "Please, Clover, you have to remain calm. What I'm about to tell you is going to shock you but please, remain calm." Jerry said slowly, as if trying to coax a baby to eat its food. "Take a seat, Clover."

            Clover's mind was filled with questions but she obliged. She sat between Sam and Alex and listened to what their head had to say.

            "We have already run the tests of your DNA and stuff we've collected from you, Clover, and we have received results from it. It turned out that you have a very rare—probably very, _very_ rare—one of a kind virus that has never existed in this whole wide world before. We call it the Ice Queen virus."

            Clover popped a vein. That name reminded her of that time when that demented villain tried to freeze the whole world and keep her as his chessmate and his Eve—his Ice Queen.  

            "The Ice Queen attacks the vital part which stimulates emotion. Once it has attached itself into it, it will stay there and whenever the patient gets overreacted or excited or any kind of hyper-emotion, it'll trigger the virus right away to eject its acidic entities into the emotion stimulator and causes it to boil and churn. Once the acids attack the stimulator, it'll spread quickly into your bloodstream and into your heart, which is why you're getting sudden heartburns and breathing difficulties, because it also attacks the cardiovascular system. If matters become worse, the acid would spread all over your body and finally into your brain causing immediate brain death and instant expiration."

            So far, Sam was the only one being able to understand such a complicated theory and was the first to gasp in horror. Clover and Alex sweatdropped and turned to her, "Uh…would you mind translating that to English, please?"

            "What Jerry means," Sam replied, "that you got some sort of virus that is infecting the part of your body that makes you have emotions—you know, happy, sad, angry, whatever. And if you ever become too excited or too emotional, the virus will attack that part and would cause you to have that heartburn and lack of oxygen, and worse, it might attack your brain and could kill you before you could say 'Mandy is a jerk'!"

            Finally, Clover and Alex gasped in horror too at Sam's simplified explanation. Jerry quickly stepped in, "Which is why I want you, Clover, to take it easy. Don't make yourself overexcited or anything. You must control your emotion and do not get emotional over things. In fact, if you are able to show no reaction at all to a certain issue, it would be even better. Please, your life is at stake here."

            "Guess I _am_ turning into an Ice Queen," Clover whined, close to tears. Sam and Alex quickly hushed her and comforted her, for fear that her usual emotional bawling and wailing could cause her to fall on the floor and kaput. Jerry laid a finger on his lips, trying to shush her. Clover was quite annoyed at this.

            "Cut it out, guys," Clover replied, trying to keep herself as calm as possible. "You're making me look like I'm a baby or somewhat. I'm OK, I'm just a little edged about all this, that's all. I'll be fine."

            "Remember, Clover," Jerry said. "Control your emotions. Don't go astray, like you used to."

            "I will, Jer, I will."

            Easier said than done.

A/N: So will Clover be able to control her emotions and keep herself alive? Will she become the legendary Ice Queen? I dunno yet! Reviews plz!  


	4. The Resignation

A/N: Is Clover's 'mission' to total self-control going to be more tedious than her spy mission? You'll find out soon enough.

Disclaimer: I do not own Totally Spies and its characters, although I do wanna become one of them.

                                                ICE QUEEN OF THE CENTURY

            It really was easier said than done.

            The first few days turned out alright as there wasn't much of a big event going on at school and no missions to do since Jerry had announced that the North Dakota case was to be put on hold for a while until they have gathered enough clues to investigate. But soon the challenge began. Mandy was walking around boasting about her stink gas to her henchwomen and the other guys and how the professor gave her an A for it. Whenever she walks by the girls, especially Clover, she pretended to pinch her nose and screw her face at an imaginary smell, reminding her of her victory in being able to make a fool out of her unaware. Clover's blood began to boil and all whenever she does that and it took Sam and Alex a very huge effort to calm her down—Mandy has always been her pet hate.

            But the biggest challenge was when missions occur. There are often times when they were under attack or were ambushed or were caught by surprise and Clover would sort of accidentally get herself so shocked that her heartburn and asthma-like attack came. And when that happens, they have to stop their mission halfway through so that they could get her to a nearby hospital and help her calm down and her breathing. Sometimes, when the mission got so uptight and so exciting that they had to call for WOOHPS to jet in and help her up with WOOHPS latest technology.

            It's not that Jerry never looked for a cure. He had tried a lot of remedies and he himself volunteered to join forces with the medical team to try out in looking for a cure for this Ice Queen disease. At first Jerry thought that Sam and Alex were infected since they were pretty close to her ever since her first seizure at school, but after they did a thorough check-up, they were clear and not affected at all. In fact, they couldn't find a single trace of the virus in them. Now, the biggest problem Jerry has to face is to find a cure for Clover, how did this virus come about and why is only Clover infected yet no one else was when they did have close interaction with her.

            Throughout Jerry's quest for the cure, Clover had to endure the most torture. Besides the constant but tiring job of temper control, whenever Jerry 'had a hunch' on having the cure, she became the lab rat or somewhat. She dreaded the most when it comes to testing out the cure to see if it works. Some tasted nice or a-OK, but the others were like heck (Jerry's famous quote "We're working on the taste"). She was glad that she didn't have to go for chemotherapy or she would die out of horror or sorrow because of her bald shining head after the chemo. Sam and Alex gave her a lot of moral support but they knew that this wasn't enough as it was Clover enduring the whole thing and not them.

            Finally it was the last straw. It was when the girls went into another mission on chasing a baddie who ran off with a full set of governmental secret plans to sell them to the highest bidder, namely every crime-doer known to man. The girls were trying to fight off the baddie's henchmen and Clover, the strong and feisty one (well, not so feisty now), got past all of them and was running to get the baddie. She was gaining close to him when all of a sudden the baddie flung a great deal of sharp tiny spears at her, slicing her skin everywhere and getting at her blonde hair she was so proud of, making it look like it was seriously in a bad hair day. Clover treasures her looks most and the one thing—the PRIME thing—she hated was anyone ruining her hair. Never mind her scars on the body, but a ruined hair was a nightmare.

            Forgetting the naggings about keeping her cool and without thinking twice, she burst into a fit of serious rage and pounced onto the baddie, throttling him like never before. Come to think of it, she was much angrier right now than she was when she was being taunted by Mandy. Whether she was venting her anger out at all the injustice done to her ever since she was infected with the Ice Queen or she was just plain mad, only she knows. She hits him again and again, yelling, "How dare you! HOW DARE YOU!!! You ruined my perfect hair! You've totally ruined my look! I'll teach you to mess with my hair, you son of a…"

            Bad move. No sooner she started ranting and raving about her hair that the heartburn caught up with her. But it was much more serious than that. It was like feeling the bullet shot through your chest all of a sudden. The pain was searing and so sudden that she was caught off guard. Blood immediately shot out of her mouth like a fountain and she found herself clutching her throat, trying to breathe. More blood came out of her mouth and she was both choking in her own blood and choking to breathe properly. As she struggled to get air into her could-be punctured lungs, she fell sideways from on top of the baddie. He saw the chance and quickly kicked Clover away and made his escape, but he was too late—the WOOHPS team has come in and took it from there. Sam and Alex stopped whatever they were doing and rushed towards Clover who was regurgitating more blood and was in the brink of severe asphyxiation. Jerry clicked his fingers and immediately, the ever familiar medical squad came over with a stretcher and an oxygen tank and all. They quickly fitted the breathing mask over her face and carried her into the jet. 

            Whether she choked too much of her own blood or the air came in too late, it was evident that while the WOOHPS jet was on its way to the HQ, she was slowly slipping away. Her breathing became slower and slower and soon she wasn't breathing at all. The heartbeat machine let out a long beep that didn't seem to end. Everyone was startled, especially Jerry, Sam and Alex. Alex was practically bursting into pool of tears more than when Clover cries over a lost date or a chipped nail. Sam was also panicked and she was grabbing Clover by the shoulder and shaking her to wake her up. Jerry, although panicked, had no time to act emotionally. He quickly grabbed the heart-starter pump and ordered one of the medic members to turn on the machine. After yelling "Clear!!" he removed—stripped, actually—Clover's spy outfit and pumped her chest with the heart-starter pump. He did again and again, all the while muttering, "Come on, Clover. Come on, come back to us! You're too young to die, you said that when you first came into the WOOHPS agency! Come on, Clover, come on!"

            After what seemed like a very, very long time, the heartbeat machine finally showed signs of heartbeats in Clover. Everyone sighed in relief as Clover has finally come back from the dead. The medic team quickly added more air for Clover to breath and did everything they could do to keep Clover alive until they finally reached the WOOHPS HQ.

            Unknown to everyone, a single tear came out of Clover's closed eyes.

                                                                                                *

            "Ah, Clover! I'm so glad you're finally up and about!"

            The girls were standing right in front of Jerry's table and Jerry was looking at Clover with a face of leveled enthusiasm. After that near-death experience, Clover had to stay in the WOOHPS medical ward for almost a week. Visits were prohibited, and that includes Sam and Alex. They had to tell Clover's mother a white lie that the hospital has found out about what Clover was having and will be keeping her in another hospital somewhere out of town and visitors aren't allowed. Of course, Clover was allowed to give her mother a call to tell her that she was alright, provided that she didn't give away where she was. After the week was over and that Clover was quite fit to walk about, Jerry had called the other girls to come and visit her and take her home, but not before he announced that he _might_ have another cure for Clover that _just might work_.

            "How are you feeling right now, Clover?" Sam asked, holding her girlfriend's hand tight, as if she hadn't seen her for about a century long.

            "Peachy," Clover replied briefly, her face not showing any concern, just bored. Jerry saw that as a good sign; at least she has learnt not to be so emotional as before.

            "I have very important news to tell you girls," Jerry said enthusiastically. "The medical team and I have been working day and night after Clover was admitted in our organization's ward. And I truly believe that I have found the perfect cure for Clover's…"

            "If I may be allowed to speak," Clover suddenly voiced out of the blue in the midst of Sam and Alex's excited faces. "Thanks, Jerry. I appreciate what you're trying to do. I really do."

            "But…?" Jerry asked, expecting something from her sudden proclamation.

            "No thanks, Jer."

            "What??" Sam and Alex were surprised. Clover's face went cold all over before announcing this bizarre statement.

            "I'm quitting the team."

            "WHAT??!!" Now it was all of them, including Jerry who stood up abruptly with eyes wide open, to be shocked.

            "You heard me," Clover replied coldly. "I quit the team. I'm not going to be a spy anymore."

            "But…But, Clover!" Alex was the first to protest, as she was the one who treasures teamwork and friendship the most. "You can't quit! We're a team! We can't be a team without you with us! You're like the strength, the power and the juice-pumper in our team! You can't just leave!"

            "Yeah," Sam agreed. "What would we do without you? What would become of our team? It's just not us without you around!"

            "There's always a first time for everything," Clover replied, the cold look on her face seemed permanently stuck. "You'll just have to do things around here without me."

            "This time I must agree with Sam and Alex," Jerry said sternly. "I will not allow you to leave the team. Your condition is too vulnerable to be out there when anything can stimulate your emotions. If you leave the team, I won't be able to have a close look at you and won't be there to help you out whenever you get the heartburns and seizures. You might even die! I cannot…"

            Jerry's words trailed away when Clover walked stealthily towards Jerry's table and suddenly banged her fist on it. The weird was that her face was still that unemotional, cold state when she was doing it. There was no trace of anger, pain, hate, frustration or anything on her face. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just the plain, cold and unemotional piece of facial expression right before his eyes. Even when she answered, her voice was as cold as ever.

            "If I stay, I _will_ die. You saw what happened the past week. And don't try to say that I can be exempted from missions after this, because I want to be completely out of the team and completely out of WOOHPS. No strings attached, you got me?"

            Without waiting for Jerry's answer, she pressed a button on Jerry's table which opened a trapdoor to let her fall out of WOOHPS HQ. She didn't even scream as she fell, like she used to. There wasn't a single peep out of her. As the trapdoor closed, Sam and Alex were able to find their voices again.

            "Jer…Jerry…she really meant what she said," Alex said, her voice quivering and her eyes close to tears. "She's leaving…she's out of the team…for good!"

            "Her face…she looked so different…" Sam said softly. "How long did she train herself to keep that sort of emotional state…? I mean, she banged the table but she doesn't sound angry…I don't understand…"

            "I guess it's for the best, girls," Jerry finally sighed in defeat. "If we want her to be in good hands, keep her alive and not let last week's incident happen, I guess…we have to let this happen."

A/N: Oh no!!! Clover has left the building, and it's for good!!! What would become of the Totally Spies?! Reviews plz! 


	5. The Breakup

A/N: Poor Clover is seriously out and outta here! T_T What'll the girls do? Read to find out, people! Sorry for the delay though; writer's block…^_~;

Disclaimer: I do not own Totally Spies and its characters, although I do wanna become one of them.

                                                ICE QUEEN OF THE CENTURY

            After the announcement of Clover quitting the team, Clover had serious reputation makeover. She never responded to any of the jokes pulled by the English teacher (which really shocked him because she was always the first one to laugh and enjoy his jokes) during his class. She didn't show a single disgusted reaction towards dissecting a rat during biology class (except Alex, who fainted in the spot). She didn't even blinked at any of the cute guys in school even though they were just right under her noses and she didn't even respond in usual emotional way when A.J., the science whiz, asked her out on drive-in movie. She practically just shrugged him off coldly, leaving A.J. drowning in emotional scars.

            The most surprising thing (although Sam and Alex have half-expected this to happen) was that when the dream guy David they were attracted to at the same time passed by and said his good mornings to the girls, Clover didn't even twitched an eyebrow. She just watched him pass by coldly while Sam and Alex practically swooned as he disappeared out of sight. Even when a really cute guy from Science class or a charismatic guy from Literature or a handsome jock from gym class asked her out on a date, her eyes would just bore at their coldly and replied just briefly, "Not interested."

            Within weeks, Clover was automatically crowned as the Ice Queen of Beverly Hills High and became even more popular for her cold attitude than Mandy was at her so-called talented charisma. Practically she was even more popular than the time she was voted Homecoming Queen with the help of A.J.! Sam and Alex were beginning to worry about her sudden change of attitude.

            Slowly, Clover began to spend lesser and lesser time with Sam and Alex and more with herself. Before she would at least accompany them wherever they go with limited conversation and stand there and watch while Sam and Alex get sucked into one of Jerry's devices leading to WOOHPS. Soon, she started to become apart from them and became much of a loner. She sat alone when she had her lunch in the cafeteria, she sat alone during classes nowhere near Sam and Alex and she doesn't even go out shopping nor do her favourite things anymore with her girlfriends.

            Finally Sam and Alex thought that enough was enough. It was OK for her to finally succeeding in controlling her emotions but this was too much. One day after school, they rushed up to Clover who was walking towards the bus station on her way home.

            "Hey, Clover!" Sam exclaimed cheerfully as possible, just to try and get Clover into the mood. "Long time no see! So how's life?"

            "Everything's just fine," Clover replied coldly as usual, her eyes not looking directly at them.

            "Hey, Clover," Alex joined in the conversation. "We're thinking about going to that new boutique down at our favourite mall. They have a new stream of clothes for the new season. Besides, you still haven't got that dress for the Spring Season Dance, and it's about time you get one before that Mandy starts outdoing herself."

            "Nope. Not interested. I probably won't be going to the lame dance after all," Clover said, her voice showing a very convincing trace of boredom.

            "Lame? But this is the season you've been looking forward to all day!" Sam said desperately. "You can't be missing this event, can you? I mean you'll be meeting so many guys there and you're gonna…"

            "Guess I was mistaken."

            "Come on, Clover," Alex was also getting desperate. "Cheer up a little. You're not thinking straight! I've just rented a great movie and if you could just come over to my house and watch it and give a little thought about the dance, you might change your mind."

            "Sorry. Got literature paperwork to be done." 

            "David might be asking the three of us out for clubbing night at that recently built barhouse," Sam said. "Wanna head to my house and wait for the call and get ready? I'll lend you my dress."

            "No, thanks."

            "How about we skip that movie I rented and go out on a real movie instead? I heard there's a new movie called 'Gattaca: Replay' on," Alex suggested.

            "No can do."

            Sam and Alex groaned. They got so frustrated that when the bus came and Clover was going to get on it, they just slammed the bus door shut, stopping Clover from getting on and they went straight to the point. They kept holding Clover back until the bus driver got sick of waiting and rode off. Clover gave them her famous piercing cold glare and said icily, "What is it that you really want, girls?"

            "We want you back, Clover!" Sam practically wanted to yell at her. "We want the old Clover back! The ol' Clover whom we know would jump at the sight of a bug, who would swoon over the latest cute guy in school, who would flip her gourd over Mandy's notorious antics, who would go out shopping and do the normal things we do together, who we know would never give up WOOHPS for the world! The ol' Clover we used to know is not standing in front of us right now!"

            "Yeah, Clover," Alex was in the verge of going down on all fours and beg. "The Clover we know would never abandon the team and would never abandon our friendship, no matter what the circumstances. We're all glad that you've finally learned how to control your emotions but this is too much! You have gone too far! You're not the Clover we used to know anymore! You're turning into that virus's pawn. The Ice Queen, remember? That virus is really making you live up to its name!!"

            "Then you'll just have to live with it because I have," Clover replied, not looking at them. Her cold face made Sam so pissed off that she reached out her hand and wanted to slap her. But Clover had the upper hand. She grabbed Sam's hand without a single expression on her face, glare at her icily before slapping Sam instead. She then pushed both Sam and Alex away onto the bench, well, actually hitting the bench and sent flying about a foot or two away from Clover. Clover's strength sure hasn't changed one bit and she was using it against them. And all the while, she did it without even as much as twitch an eyebrow.

            "Sorry, girls," Clover said coldly. "But I got loads of work to do and have no time to waste them on dates or movies or of any kind of entertainment. You know what those things can do to my life and you're trying to snuff it out of me, don't you? It's not gonna work, because I have a life to live. So if you can't take it, then beat it."

            Before Sam and Alex could get up to stop her, Clover has already gotten up on the next bus. The thunder rolled and drops of rain came pouring down. As the girls remained on the floor not knowing what to do, the rain continued to fall and got heavier and heavier, drenching them from head to toe.

            "What are we gonna do, Sam? We…We can't let her be like this forever!" Alex moaned, her tears mixing with the rain on her face. "We need her! The team needs her! WOOHPS need her!"

            "I don't know…I just…don't…know…" Sam said as she began to cry too.

A/N: Oh man, that's one bad way of losing a friend. ~_~ Will the old Clover ever return? Will we ever find out who did this to her? I'm working on it. Reviews plz! 


	6. The Discovery

A/N: Do you think that our Spies are going to stand there and do nothing while Clover wasted her life away with her cold, unconcerned attitude? No siree, they won't! So let's get on with Sam and Alex who are ready to do their own private sleuthing! Sorry, _really_ sorry for the seriously late delay. I've been infected by WBS (Writer's Block Syndrome). I must've let you guys down big time, huh? Sorry~!

Disclaimer: I do not own Totally Spies and its characters, although I do wanna become one of them.

                                                ICE QUEEN OF THE CENTURY

            The situation has been dragged on for too long. Clover has been being the Ice Queen of Beverly Hills High for way too long and Sam and Alex decided to finally do something about it. They couldn't bear to see Clover taking such burden on herself and isolate herself from everyone else. They had to make her back into the old Clover they once knew and get her back on the spy team and back into WOOHPS.

            So one day, they followed quietly behind Clover to the cafeteria. Good thing that their spy training in stealth worked out; Clover hadn't noticed them. Or maybe she did, only she didn't want to bother about it. Either way, Sam and Alex succeeded in not losing sight of Clover. They tried to sit in a spot as inconspicuous as possible so that Clover wouldn't noticed that they were there spying on her. They watched as Clover ate her sandwich and pudding in silence, ignoring everyone that was looking at her or trying to talk to her. They were so engrossed in their spying at their own best friend that they didn't care how terrible the tofu pudding or the prunes in their tray taste like.

            Finally when Clover was done with her lunch and left the tray on the table, Sam and Alex rushed quickly towards the tray before anyone else does. It was very weird thing that people would still want to help Clover clear the table even though she didn't care a hoot about them. They took Clover's spoon that she had just used to eat her oatmeal and slipped it into a plastic bag Alex brought from home. They left the rest of the tray alone for those love-crazed men to clear and rushed towards the toilet. They hid themselves in one of the toilet cubicles and waited until the toilet was completely empty before Sam took out her Com-powder to check out the spoon. They ran the spoon on the scanner of the Com-powder and the test results revealed the Ice Queen virus in her saliva on the spoon. Sam pressed a few buttons and the Com-powder printed out the results in a miniature paper.

            "It looks like the Ice Queen virus is still in her system," Sam said worriedly. "And check this out. Although Clover was controlling her emotions really well and all, the virus is still continuing to spread throughout her body. It's as if although she wasn't showing any emotions from the outside, her heart still has an inkling of feelings towards the outside world, and that makes the virus continue to infect her in small doses."

            "You…You don't mean…?" Alex asked worriedly, fearing the worst.

            "Yes," Sam confirmed her worries. "The virus is now taking over all of her body and that means even if she just smiles a little bit, it would mean the death of her."

            "Oh no! And I was hopeful that she still concerned about us! But why aren't we infected? We were close to her 24/7 and yet Jerry couldn't find any signs of the Ice Queen virus in our system."

            "I don't know," Sam admitted. "It's still a mystery to me."

            "What are we going to do now? We can't just let her continue to be like this! This is terrible! If she ever becomes the normal Clover we once knew, she'll die and it'll be all our fault!"

            "That's why I'm opting to go to WOOHPS lab and help out the experts in there to find a cure for Clover. I still have her spoon and they must've kept some DNA samples of her. I'm going to ask Jerry to allow me access of the lab so that I can help find the antidote for Clover's ailment."

            "I wanna help too! Clover is our best friend and I'm not going to stand here watching her become the world's coldest woman!"

            "Alright, but we must hurry," Sam said as she unlocked the cubicle of her door. "Time is of the essence and the clock is ticking on Clover's lifeline."

            While they walked out of the toilet and towards their English class, they saw Clover being surrounded by a lot of guys trying their luck on wooing her heart and trying to get her to smile at them just a little bit and as usual, Clover just waved them away with her cold face and a gesture of her hand, giving them that I-don't-care-about-you-now-go-away type of attitude. Surprisingly the boys liked it even more and got even more charged up to get an emotion out of her. Mandy was glaring venomously at the background at all the guys who were practically ignoring her, the Miss Popular of the school.

            "That Clover is getting on my nerves! How can she, an insignificant girl and with those ugly blonde bangs could defeat me, the most popular girl in Beverly Hills High?! This is so not fair!" Mandy was growling to herself and her henchwomen were nodding and agreeing her every complaint.

            "Looks like you've found your match now, haven't you, Mandy?" Alex said, giving a smug sideways look at her. Though the fact that Clover being cold and all bothered her, she couldn't help feeling triumphant to see Mandy being hurt for once than hurting them as usual.

            "It must that stink gas I've sprayed at her! It's giving her more good luck than the bad I expected!" Mandy complained. "Maybe I should spray some of them on myself so that…"

            "Wait a second," Sam suddenly turned to Mandy. "Did you say the stink gas that you've used on Clover last Science exam?"

            "Yup, that's the one. What? Why do you ask?" Mandy eyed at them suspiciously.

            "It's not something you'll understand anyway," Sam waved away Mandy's question. "Do you still have it with you?"

            "Well, duh!" Mandy replied haughtily, shaking the bottle of stink gas at Sam's face. "Ever since that incident, I carry it everywhere just to see if I can spray at anyone that annoys me. So far the only person annoying me now is your best friend _Clover_!"

            "Can I have that bottle, please?"

            "What? And let you hog all the glory your _best friend_ has right now?! Get real! I'm going to use it on myself…"

            "Look here, _Mandy_!" Sam hissed as she grabbed Mandy's hand while she was attempting to spray the stink gas on herself. "This is not some good luck charm game, and I'm in no mood for jokes. This is a life or death situation here and I need that bottle! Either you give it to me, or you'll regret in your deathbed that you have ever tried this stink gas!"

            "Al…Alright, alright already," Mandy said timidly before letting Sam take the bottle from her hand. Her henchwomen were as surprised and shocked as Mandy to see Sam reacted in such way.

            "Thank you," Sam said as she quickly dashed off with the bottle of stink gas. Alex followed suite.

            "You seemed so determined," Alex said in a surprise tone as she followed Sam into her car that was going towards the direction of the HQ of WOOHPS. "Do you have any leads?"

            "As a matter of fact, I do," Sam replied determinedly. "And I bet that it's got something to do with this stink gas and the virus Clover's having."

                                                                                                *

            The lone figures of Sam, Alex and Jerry were in the WOOHPS lab with Sam leading the research. The trio looked really solemn and serious as Sam mixed and matched the chemicals and scientific stuff that was laid before her on the science table. She took a drop of the stink gas liquid from the bottle and mixed it with a little solvent and chemicals from other bottles labeled with scientific symbols that only Jerry and Sam could make sense of. Then, mixing Clover's blood sample she got from one of the scientists in the lab, she slipped the glass slide into the microscope device and turned on the power. She pressed a few more buttons and the images were projected onto the screen across the lab.

            "Amazing! The entities in the stink gas are actually filled with the Ice Queen virus DNA," Jerry said as he watched the entities in the stink gas liquid rambunctiously swarmed Clover's DNA and attacked it. "And they are actually trying to feed off and destroy Clover's DNA and demolish it as if it's some kind of a sweet delicacy. It's like the scene where a horse fell into a river filled with piranhas." 

            "Exactly. The Ice Queen virus is actually mixed together with the stink gas liquid in Mandy's science project," Sam replied. "And it only attacks Clover's DNA and no one else."

            "What do you mean? That this Ice Queen virus thingy is actually _designed_ to attack only Clover and not us?" Alex asked, curious.

            "Watch," Sam said as she took out a needle. She pricked her finger and put a drop of blood onto a new glass slide and did the same on Alex and Jerry onto separate slides. She then took out more samples from the stink gas bottle and dabbed it onto their blood samples. She slid the slides one by one into the microscope and proved her point—the stink gas entities immediately dispersed and kept a certain distance away from their DNA, leaving it untouched. Alex and Jerry were even more amazed.

            "This is incredible!" Jerry said as he stared intently at the results. "It truly is designed to only attack Clover's DNA and not anyone else! No wonder none of us has the symptoms Clover has. It has no effect on us!"

            "But that's impossible!" Alex exclaimed. "There is no way a normal person could be able to concoct such a high-tech virus as this! Mandy would have to be a super genius to do that…unless she _is_ a genius and is hiding that from us so that she could get back at Clover! This is too much! I'm gonna kill her myself for doing that to…"

            "Or it could be someone else," Sam remarked. "Remember when she tried to spray the stink gas on herself? She doesn't have a clue that this virus existed in her stink gas. If she does, she wouldn't have tried to experiment it on herself if she knows what's good for her. She wouldn't even dare to try her own cooking during Cooking Class. Someone must've tampered with her stink gas while she's not looking."

            "But who would have such a grudge on Clover and would want to tamper with Mandy's stink gas to get back on her?"

            "Girls," Jerry finally voiced out. "I have a feeling we need to sort out both your school records and the Dakota health lab for this one."

A/N: Well, do you have any leads on who might cause this sort of insanity? Tell me your thoughts while I work on my next chappie. Toodles!


	7. The Culprit

A/N: Well, any luck on guessing who is the culprit behind all this? We're getting into the heat of the story now! So sit back, relax and enjoy the show!

Disclaimer: I do not own Totally Spies and its characters, although I do wanna become one of them.

                                                ICE QUEEN OF THE CENTURY

            After discovering more about the virus, Sam and Alex got even busier than ever. They split up and checked out the records Jerry told them to look—Sam through the school records (of course, Sam did that in secret—she wouldn't want to blow her cover as a spy) and Alex through the employer records of the North Dakota Health Centre. They did copies of every person in the data file and brought them all into the WOOHPS HQ to scan through. There were stacks upon stacks of paperwork on Jerry's table as the girls and Jerry personally went through them one by one.

            "I can't seem to find anyone that fits the puzzle, Sam," Alex sighed as she threw away the 21st file copied from the North Dakota Health Centre employer records. "None of them look suspicious enough to me. I can't pinpoint a single one!"

            "Just keep looking, Alex," Sam said determinedly as she flipped through Mandy's school records. "You'll be sure to find something in there that might lead us to Clover's culprit sooner or later."

            "What bothers me is that why would anyone want to hurt or kill Clover?" Jerry commented as he ran through a file from the school records. "Did she offend anyone recently?"

            "She may have blown off a few dates before she started getting sick, but that's no biggie. The only one offended right now is Mandy because she thinks that Clover's been hogging all the school glory," Alex replied. "But that's after she got the Ice Queen virus. Mandy would have to hire a janitor to help her pick up the trash if that's what it takes to not chip her nails and make her home look _perfect_, let alone do her science project."

            "That's it, Alex! You're a genius!" Sam exclaimed, standing up abruptly.

            "I…I am?" Alex was surprised and a little confused.

            "Yeah! Remember the time Mandy and I were to enter the Spelling Bee competition? She had her father call in those 3 weirdo-s to help her out so that she can win the competition. She could never do anything without at least her henchwomen by her side! She must've had help to do her science project on the stink gas and whoever it is might have a chance to tamper with it! Why didn't I think of that?"

            "How can you be sure that Mandy isn't the mastermind behind all this?" Alex folded her arms. "She hates Clover enough to kill her, I bet."

            "If she wanted to, she had already hired a sniper to do it. Besides she wouldn't want to attempt spraying herself with the stink gas if she knew what was in there. It's time we pay our little Miss Popular a visit. Jerry?"

            Jerry needed not to be told twice. He pressed the button on his table and sent Sam and Alex falling down the secret chute under their seats. As soon as the girls were gone, Jerry continued on his search through the files. After going through countless files and was thinking about taking a break, he came across something interesting and peculiar in one of the files from the North Dakota Health Centre. He stared and stared at the picture for a quite a long time, his face going solemn and calculative all over. Without wasting a second longer, he began to work his fingers over the keyboard of his laptop.

                                                                                                *

            "What? Are you accusing me of cheating on my own homework?"

            Sam and Alex were at Mandy's triple-storey home and, as usual, she and her henchwomen (I can't seem to know their names) were enjoying a relaxing dip in their indoor Jacuzzi. Sam and Alex had come in unannounced and didn't bother to entertain any of Mandy's cynical demands of their business being here. They got right down to business asking her who helped her with her stink gas project and they have expected a fierce reply.

            "We have no time to answer any of your petty remarks and, yes, you obviously would cheat to get an A for Algebra!" Alex growled back at her. "So just tell us who helped you with your stink gas homework already!"

            "You have just got to be kidding me! Me, Mandy, a cheater? That is like so accusingly wrong!" Mandy fluffed her hair proudly and arrogantly. "I did this science project with my own two hands and my girls here can be witnesses. Ask them. They'll tell you that I did it single-handedly without even asking for _their_ help, unlike you three."

            "Of course they'll testify for you! They practically live for you! No doubt they'll lie for you too!"

            "Look, Mandy. This is a matter of life and death here," Sam tried to be as patient as possible with the bratty attitude of Mandy. "This has to concern about the life of Clover. If you are concerned about a dying life that your project has caused, you'd better spit out whatever info you have on your stink gas."

            "What?" Mandy looked at the girls in disbelief. "Are you saying that my stink gas has something to do with Clover's soon-to-be death? Now that's rich!"

            "We're telling the truth!" Alex said desperately, finally blurting out the truth and not wanting to hint anymore. "Clover is actually very, very sick and there is something in that stink gas of yours that's causing it. We know that you had a little help in completing your project—you could simply afford anyone to help you. You have to tell us who's been helping you with the project or Clover will die!"

            "Get real! I will have nothing to do with your silly jokes or your boring threats," Mandy huffed as she got out of the Jacuzzi. "Come on, girls. Let's go downstairs and make ourselves some ice cold lemonade while they send themselves outta here."

            As Mandy and her henchwomen left, Alex looked desperately at Sam, seeing if she had any ideas about how to persuade Mandy to tell her what they need. When she saw Sam showing not much of a reaction, Alex rushed forward in front of Mandy and her henchwomen and did the unthinkable—she went down on her knees and begged.

            "Please, Mandy. Please! I beg of you! I have never asked any favours from you or tried to pester you to help us do anything. I ask just for this favour. Just please tell us the name of the person who helped you with your project and we'll leave you alone! I promise! Please!"

            "Oh, come on, Alex! Lighten up, will ya?" Mandy said exasperatedly, obviously not taking in this act. "Stop it with the pretence already! Why are you so desperate to know who does my homework anyway? It's not like he's gonna help you do yours! You're not pretty enough!"

            "So someone _did_ help you do your homework, didn't he? Who is it? Tell me please!"

            "I told you, I will have nothing to do…"

            Mandy's voice trailed away and was going all pale when she saw Sam standing in front of everybody with a penknife dangerously close to her wrist. She was staring at them with such determination in her eyes as she brought the blade of the penknife close to the veins of her wrist, threatening to cut it. Alex, including the henchwomen, was shocked to see Sam attempting this feat.

            "Sam, what are you doing?" Mandy asked tentatively, pointing at the penknife.

            "You know exactly what I'm trying to do, and if you don't give us what we want," Sam said in a calm and determined tone, "I assure you I will kill myself and you'll scrubbing this blood-stained floor regretting that you have never helped me."

            "Why are you doing all this?" Mandy was beginning to sound worried and scared now. "Why are you willing to go through all this trouble just to get some stupid name?" 

            "Because this is what friends are for," Sam said as she could feel the coldness of the blade of the penknife on her wrist. "They go through thick and thin and no matter what happens to them, they will always be best of friends, and that means they will do anything to save their friends' lives. Maybe some day when you have _real_ friends, you'll understand what I mean."

            "I'm not buying this, Sam. If you think that this is some sort of a scare game, I'm not going to fall for it," Mandy said nervously, challenging Sam.

            "You still think this is a game?"

            So saying, she pulled the blade quickly across her wrist. She felt a sharp, abrupt pain as her veins on her wrist slashed and blood began to pour swiftly out of the open wound and onto the marble floor of the indoor Jacuzzi. Mandy and her henchwomen let out a strangled scream and Alex hurriedly got up onto her feet and rushed towards Sam, grabbing her bleeding wrist and holding it tight, keeping the pressure to stop the bleeding. She, too, found it hard to believe that the calm and collected member of the Totally Spies would do such a silly thing like this.

            "What…What is this?" Mandy laughed nervously as she saw the blood trickling more and more onto the marble floor. She was beginning to go pale with horror and disgust. "Come on, Sam! You don't have to…"

            "If you don't give me a name," Sam said weakly but determinedly. "My jugular will be next."

            "Al…Alright! Alright! I'll tell you already! Just stop making yourself bleed!" Mandy finally agreed in desperation. She turned towards her henchwomen and said, "Don't just stand there, girls! Get the first-aid kit or something, and get someone to clean this blood off the floor! I don't want to be accused of murder or something!"

            Soon, Sam and Alex were at the living room as one of the henchwomen helped to bandage Sam's slashed wrist. Mandy came in later with a tray of drinks, one of them looking pale-white in colour. She sat down and passed the pale drink hastily towards Sam, not looking at her in the eye as she said, "Here, a glass of glucose, for the loss of blood."

            "I didn't know you knew this kind of things," Alex said, slightly admired.

            "Well, being stuck with a mother who knows the ins and outs of healthcare food gets to you," Mandy replied, still not wanting to look at Sam and Alex in the eye for fear that they could see the small inkling of kindness in her. "I still don't understand why you would want to do something as stupid as this just for a name."

            "Like I said," Sam replied after taking a sip from her glass, "You'll understand if you were to have real friends like I have. Now, would you mind telling me who helped you with your science project?"

            "You have to swear that you will tell no one about this, 'coz I told our Science professor that I did it by myself!"

            Alex did a Cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die sign.

            "Well," Mandy continued reluctantly, "I saw that the deadline was near, so I begged Daddy to help me with my work. Sweet Daddykins, busy as he always was, flew in a kid from…let me see…North Dakota, I think. Daddy said he was a genius and he could help out with my homework in no time. He really was a genius. He helped me mixed this and that I didn't have to move even a muscle…"

            "Wait a second," Sam interrupted. "Did you say he came from North Dakota?"

            "Yeah, from some health lab or something. I dunno. He looks really young to be a scientist and all though. I think he could use some of his genius time to date. Would you believe that he'd finished high school and college when he was between 12 and 14? Now that is one serious bookworm. Though he does look really cute and all…"

            "And what was his name?" Alex asked anxiously.

            "Well, it's pretty long, but I think his name is Johannesburg Wilkinson. Named after the place he was born, that is."

            "Did he say anything about his past in school? Anything at all?" Sam asked.

            "Come to think of it," Mandy tapped her chin. "He did tell me about some bitchy girl who agreed to go with him to some prom night and cancelled it at the last minute over another cute guy. That is so lame. He's cute enough to be surrounded by girls and that girl just stood him up and all! What a waste!"

            "Thank you so much, Mandy," Alex reached out and hugged Mandy gratefully, surprising herself a little. By far, this was the first time she had ever been that close a body contact with Mandy and she was actually feeling really grateful for her info. She quickly pulled herself away from Mandy and flashed her a friendly wink before following behind Sam as she dashed out of Mandy's front door in a thrice. Mandy rushed after them and yelled at them at the door.

            "And if you ever, _ever_ breathe a word about me being nice to you brats, you'll be sorry!"

                                                                                                *

            "You're just in time, girls. I've got some news for…Oh dear, Sam, what happened to your wrist?"

            Sam and Alex were back at WOOHPS and could be seen racing towards Jerry's office to tell him about the info they have got from Mandy when they were greeted by Jerry's surprised look on his face after seeing Sam's bandaged wrist.

            "It's a long story, Jerry, but we've finally got a name from the person that could be behind Clover's sickness," Sam said, waving away Jerry's question.

            "Yeah. We've gone through a lot of trouble getting it though," Alex chimed in. "His name is quite long and it's…"

            "Johannesburg Wilkinson," Jerry finished Alex's sentence as he clicked a few buttons on his laptop.

            "Why, yes. And guess where he's from—the…"

            "The North Dakota Health Centre," Jerry finished Alex's words again as he clicked a button from his remote to show his picture on the screen. He had hair almost as red as Ronald Weasley in Harry Potter and fair skin (minus the freckles, that is), with striking green eyes to match. A very handsome fellow he was. Jerry continued with what he was about to say, "This is what I've found from his files just now: his full name is Johannesburg Robert Wilkinson and he's the youngest member in North Dakota Health Centre—only at about an age younger than you girls. He's born genius with an IQ level of 210 and went through home schooling taught by his father, a professor in Beverly Hills College. He went to high school when he was 12 years old and graduated from it within 3 months. Then he went to college and finished his course in healthcare and medicinal remedies and graduated when he was 14. He soon received a job offer at North Dakota Health Centre and was there ever since."

            "Mandy told us about him being dumped by a girl during his year in high school. Is there any info about him regarding about that?" Alex suddenly popped out the question.

            "I'm not exactly sure about that," Jerry rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "People don't exactly have private personal info such as this in their bio-data mainframe, you know."

            "Where did Johannesburg study during high school?" Sam asked.

            "Well, let's see…" Jerry said as he clicked on the keyboard for a few moments. After clicking the word 'ENTER' a small file came out revealing the name of his school. "It's Georgia High, Nevada. Why do you ask?"

            Sam's face slowly darkened as she began to make sense of everything that has been going on since the past few months. Alex and Jerry noticed the change of attitude on Sam and stared at her quizzically until Alex finally broke the ice.

            "What's wrong, Sam? Have you figured out something?"

            Sam took a while before she could finally blurt out her words.

            "That's where Clover used to study before she moved here to Beverly Hills High."

A/N: Get the picture now? You guys understand what this is all about? If not, then you have to continue reading. Reviews plz!


	8. The Decision

A/N: Now that we have finally found the suspect, let's get on with the juicy adventurous part, shall we?

Disclaimer: I do not own Totally Spies and its characters, although I do wanna become one of them.

                                                ICE QUEEN OF THE CENTURY

            "Come again?"

            Sam and Alex, after many, many long months of separation, finally sat face to face with Clover and were actually talking to her again. They really missed the days when the three of them could just talk about absolutely everything and to hear Clover's voice again was like hearing a long-lost friend speaking to them, even though her voice was the usual unconcerned, ice-cold tone. Well, in a way, they are pretty much long lost to her.

            "Well, you see," Sam tried to explain. "We did a little investigation on the virus that was infecting you and we found out that this virus came from the stink gas Mandy sprayed on you during the last day of the mid-term exams and is actually designed to infect your DNA only."

            "And we thought that it could be someone really smart and has a grudge on you, so we did a little research," Alex chided in. "Mandy was out of the list, lucky for her."

            "I never thought it was her anyway," Clover replied nonchalantly, as always.

            "We thought that it could be someone tampering with Mandy's stink gas while she wasn't looking, so we decided to interrogate Mandy a little," Sam continued.

            "We had to use drastic measures, you know," Alex sighed as she pointed at Sam's bandaged wrist. Clover took a look at it and gave a None-of-my-business look. Sam had expected that.

            "Anyway, we got what we wanted and we found out that the person responsible for your condition right now is a guy named Johannesburg Robert Wilkinson who works in the North Dakota Health Centre. Does his name ring a bell to you?"

            "Not really," Clover replied after giving a few seconds' thought.

            "He used to study in Georgia High, Nevada," Alex tried to remind her. "That where you studied before WOOHPS transferred you to study here in Beverly Hills High. We believe that he has a personal grudge on you."

            "Many guys have a personal grudge on me. Not that I cared," Clover replied, looking away in an uninterested mood.

            "Clover, do you remember ever standing up someone during a prom night?" Sam asked.

            "I stood up a lot of guys, and it's not only for prom nights. I can't remember every detail of my life."

            "Try, Clover," Sam persuaded, putting her hand on her best friend's shoulder. She could feel Clover tense a little, as if her fingers were burning a hole through her skin, but she disregarded it. She hadn't been in such close contact with her for a very long time now and the feeling of being able to touch her best friend was good enough for her. Clover stared at her hand for a while before sighing and flicking it off.

            "There is one guy who asked me to the Winter Prom Night during my first year in Georgia High." Clover admitted. "I don't really remember his name, though. He's quite cute and all and I agreed to go with him. Then I met this other guy--a transfer student from Hawaii--just a day before the prom night and he was much cuter than the guy who asked me first, so I stood him up. Happy now?"

            Sam and Alex looked at each other in dismay. This time their worries were coming true. Her flirtatious ways had finally got her into trouble and a vengeful guy was actually getting back at her. They should've known that this was going to happen sooner or later.

            "What? Are you trying to tell me that this Johannesburg guy was the person that I stood up for the Winter Prom Night and now he's getting back at me?" Clover asked, raising an eyebrow.

            "Yeah, we believe that's the whole point," Sam sighed. Alex didn't know what to say.

            "Then this guy seriously needs a psychiatrist," Clover replied coldly before walking away from her friends, her face showing no concern of what's going on right now and what she was supposed to do. Sam and Alex didn't try to stop her. They knew that Clover is not going to do anything and can't do anything because she had to continue keeping her cool against the Ice Queen Virus.

            "So what are we going to do now?" Alex asked as soon as Clover disappeared out of sight.

            "What else can we do? We have to find Johannesburg and force him to give us the antidote," Sam said determinedly. "We can't leave Clover like this, although in a way, Clover had started all this trouble in the first place. If we don't find an antidote soon, there is no telling when Clover would suddenly collapse on the floor dead once the virus has finally spread to a critical point."

            "You're right, Sam. We have to find the mastermind behind all this and get him to cure Clover. Then we'll have to make Clover apologize for what she had made him to do."

            "How's about calling Jerry and ask him for Johannesburg's address and we'll start off from there?" Sam asked.

            "That's the only first option we have," Alex shrugged, taking out her Com-powder. Before she could start calling WOOHPS, the Com-powder rang first. Alex answered it and it was Jerry's familiar face.

            "Hello, girls," Jerry said. "How's Clover doing?"

            "As cold as usual," Alex replied. "Clover confirmed to us that Johannesburg was behind all this. We were thinking of going to his house to arrest him and get him to create an antidote for her before she expires."

            "That's what I've suspected," Jerry replied. "But I'm afraid it is not possible now."

            "Why not?" Sam asked, surprised.

            "We have already conducted a search at Johannesburg's house and we have found nothing. We've checked high and low, every nook and cranny, including his lab at the basement, yet we found no one. But somehow we've located his journal and guess what, girls?"

            "What?" Sam and Alex asked simultaneously.

            "The perpetrator who broke into the secret lab and stole the hush-hush anti-depression medicine was actually no other than Johannesburg himself. He has been planning this revenge all along and he had went through a long distance just to do that. There are tons of research books about criminals and how their way of breaking into houses undetected and also lists of codes and access info and his calculations on how to break them. He even has tons of paperwork in his lab showing his experiments on altering the anti-depression medicine. The science department are analyzing it as we speak.

            "He also had a personal diary in his room writing all kinds of mean things about Clover and how he was going to get back at her. There is also a receipt and some invoices of payments he got from your friend Mandy, which confirmed Mandy's story. He had spared no expense to get his figures and plans right."

            "Sounds like this is someone who is very bad in rejections," Sam muttered darkly, feeling as if she was going to stab Johannesburg in the head for making Clover's life so miserable. Alex nodded in agreement.

            "My guess, girls," Jerry continued, "that he could be somewhere cold, maybe Poland. There are a few entries in his journals suggesting that he had to keep these virus entities really cold and the only temperature fit for that criteria would be at Poland. And the fact that he had some souvenirs brought back from that country."

            "Alright, Poland it is then," Sam said. "Better get our gear ready, because if Johannesburg spared no expense in trying to kill Clover, then we'll do just the same to capture him."

            "Already coming your way, girls," Jerry replied. "Your ride will be at Beverly Hills Park. You'll have to hurry."

            "Isn't that a little bit inconspicuous, Jer?" Alex asked, worried that it might blow their spy cover.

            "No time to think about that now. Thanks, Jer," Sam said as she turned off Alex's Com-powder. In a thrice, they were running towards Beverly Hills Park and sure enough, there was their TINY TIM flown by one of the WOOHPS crew with civilians staring at it in awe. The crew let down a ladder for them to climb in.

            "Thanks, pal. You're a great help," Alex thanked the pilot as soon as they were in the TINY TIM and miles above air. He gave her a thumbs-up.

            "Anything for the girls to keep this world safe," he replied. "You girls can take it from here now."

            So saying, he turned on the auto-pilot system and ejected himself from the floor of TINY TIM. As the girls watched in awe, the seat the pilot was on immediately materialized itself into a small jet and flew off at an opposite direction. Alex giggled with glee.

            "WOOHPS sure have some cool toys nowadays."

            "Yeah, but we'll put that aside from now. Let's get into our spy suits and head for Poland." Sam said as she headed for the dressing room compartment.

            Soon, after setting the coordinates to Poland on the auto-pilot system, Sam and Alex went to check on what gadgets Jerry has prepared for them as TINY TIM could be seen flying through the air towards their destination to save their friend.

                                                                                    *

            "Brr~! This is colder than Clover's icy stare!"

            Sam and Alex have finally reached Poland and the first thing that greeted their arrival was the ice-cold wind that bit through their bones almost immediately.

            "Yeah, it really is freezing up here," Sam agreed. "It's almost as cold as the North Pole itself. But there's no turning back now. We have to find Johannesburg before he could think up other viruses to kill Clover."

            Alex nodded and, taking a deep (but cold) breath, walked with Sam side by side as they started hiking up a pretty steep hill. Sam took out one of the gadgets that looked like a typical hair comb Jerry prepared for them and lifted it high above her head. The gadget gave out a series of beeps as soon as she turned it on.

            "What gadget is that?" Alex asked. "I didn't get to hear all the instruction from the software Jerry left about our gadgets."

            "This is a Micro-Tracker Comb," Sam replied. "Every lab needs a computer and every computer has its own frequency. This comb is very sensitive towards possible computer waves and can pick it up in no time. You wouldn't expect a genius like Johannesburg not to have a computer in his lab now, would you?"

            "Well, no. Unless he's such a genius that he might not need one."

            "Anyway, if he so happens to have one--which I'm sure he does--we'll be able to track down the frequency of the computer waves and then we'll be able to have a clue about his whereabouts."

            "Jerry never fails to surprise us with his latest toys."

            With the guide of the beeping comb, Sam and Alex continued their way up the hill, hoping that they could find Johannesburg's hideout in time. The wind was blowing mercilessly hard at them and the snow was falling heavily upon them, making their walk even more difficult.

            "What's with all this snow and wind? It's not even winter in Beverly Hills!" Alex shouted, trying to outdo the howling wind.

            "It the high ground!" Sam yelled back. "The higher we get, the closer we are to the sky and the easier we are exposed to all this snow storm! We gotta keep going! We got a criminal to catch!"

            "Can't we use our jetpack backpack or something?!"

            "No, we can't." Sam disagreed. "The wind is too strong. We'll be blown off like paper. We have to go on foot."

            "Now I know how it felt when the Fellowship of the Ring went up that mountain towards Moria!" Alex groaned.

            Our spies continued to hike the steep hill, forcing their way through the wild, hectic snow storm. As they tried to make their strenuous way to the top, they heard a distant rumbling which sounded like it came from above.

            "What was that?" Alex exclaimed.

            "I don't know," Sam replied, looking up. "But I'm not hanging around to find out. Let's just keep going!"

            They weren't kept in the dark for long. No sooner Sam said that than a series of snow clumps came falling down. When they looked up again, they saw a huge mound of snow sliding and falling down towards their direction. It was a sign all hikers and mountain climbers feared most.

            "_Avalanche!!_" Alex exclaimed as she took to her heels. Sam followed suite. Immediately they activated their jetpack backpacks, disregarding the fact that Sam had said they would be blown off by the strong wind like paper. Somehow they activated it too late, 'coz when they were about to take off, the avalanche has already reached them and enveloped them like a huge, ice-cold blanket, swallowing them up whole…

            The cold wind continued to blow, howling like a mad wolf on the loose. The avalanche had finally stopped rolling and the hill was quite calm once more. At the foot of the hill, there laid two girls dressed in green and yellow leather outfits. One was a fair redhead and one was a tan brunette. They both lay unconscious under what seemed like half a tonne of snow, seemingly dead. They were all alone in the freezing land of Poland where there wasn't any civilization within miles and no one nearby to help them before they freeze to death in their cold, snowy grave.

            Moments later, footsteps were heard coming closer towards them.

                                                                                                *

            Clover was tossing and turning in her bed. Somehow she just couldn't sleep. There was something bothering her but she couldn't pinpoint what it was. She always had that itching feeling inside her gut whenever something bad is going on and that feeling was coming to her right now.

            She sat up and walked towards the verandah. She stared at the moon and began to think back what Sam and Alex had said to her. She did remember slightly about a guy with red hair and dashing green eyes asking her out for the Winter Prom Night and she did remember hearing from her friends in Georgia High that he was a genius and the youngest student of the entire school. She remembered feeling pretty proud because a lot of girls wanted to ask him out for the Winter Prom Night and yet he chose her. Then she remembered seeing that cute transfer student from Hawaii and couldn't help asking him to the prom night. She could still remember the hurt look on Johannesburg's face as she told him that she wouldn't be going with him after all but she was too engrossed with the Hawaiian guy to notice.

            Leaving WOOHPS was really a painful thing for her but she had to do it. The night after that near-death experience, she had been thinking long and hard about the possibilities of burdening Jerry and her best friends if she continued to stay in WOOHPS and continue to have these seizures. She had an idea that there could be someone out to get her using the Ice Queen virus and she didn't want to put Sam and Alex at risk. She was afraid that if she continued to stay, she could've involuntarily involve Sam and Alex in danger and she sure didn't want anything bad to happen to them. The whole week when she was hospitalized in WOOHPS medical centre, she had trained secretly in the middle of the night in front of a mirror to keep her expression as cold as possible and trained herself not to react to anything around her. It was the hardest thing she had ever done, but she had to do it. Evidently, she had succeeded, judging by the way she was able to fight Sam away with her spy skills and not feeling sorry about it although she really wanted to.

            Come to think of it, she secretly believed that she deserved all this punishment. She had no idea that she could hurt someone so deeply with her appalling flirtatious ways. She had no idea her action could lead to this mess. She seemed to forget that there are some people who are really bad grudge-holders and can really ruin your life if they want to. If she were able to turn back time, she would've just stuck to Johannesburg in the first place.

            While she was contemplating everything that had happened, she suddenly heard a ringing from her Com-powder. Though her face didn't show, she was slightly surprised. She remembered turning it off and stuffed in her closet ever since she left WOOHPS. She walked up to her closet and ransacked the whole place to look for the Com-powder. She finally found it and answered the call. There was a message on the screen with a picture attachment to it. It read:

****

**_            Hello, Clover. Glad to hear from you again after such a long time. You do remember me, don't you? The guy you stood up a few years ago? Well, let's rekindle our relationship a little, shall we? Go to _****_Beverly Hills_********_Airport_****_ and you will see a private jet plane waiting for you. It will take you to the outskirts of the nice chilly _****_Poland_****_, as chilly as your heart is. There you will see a snow jet ski. Take the jet ski and go west. Meet me at the first cabin you'll see and we'll talk about old times._**

****

**_            From your old flame _****_Johannesburg_****__**

****

**_P/S: Oh, BTW, you have to hurry or your best friends will have to become ice popsicles. _**

****

            Clover pressed a key to open the attachment and saw Sam and Alex tied together on a pole. The lower half of their bodies were dunked into a tank of ice water that was connected to a freezer-like machine. Their blue faces were evident that they weren't doing too good.

            Finally, after staring at the picture for about 2 minutes, she reached into her closet for her red spy suits and her jetpack backpack and was soon up in the air towards Beverly Hills Airport.

A/N: Hey, Clover actually cares after all! Three cheers for Clover! You go, girl! Reviews plz! 


	9. The Confrontation

A/N: Clover is gonna go all the way to Poland to save her two best friends. What would happen next? Read on!

Disclaimer: I do not own Totally Spies and its characters, although I do wanna become one of them.

                                                ICE QUEEN OF THE CENTURY

            Clover soon found herself standing in the middle of the vast outskirts of Poland. She looked left and right, surveyed the ground to search for the jet ski Johannesburg has been talking about, and finally saw it about 5 feet away from her. Trudging down the thick snow, she walked as quickly as possible towards the jet ski, started the engine and, within seconds, could bee seen driving down the snowy field to the west.

            The flight to Poland was pretty smooth. When she landed at Beverly Hills Airport with her jetpack backpack, it was fairly easy to spot which plane she was going to take judging by the fact that there was only one jet plane among all the airplanes at the airport. And to top it all up, it's the only plane that was black and bore the symbol of Poland. She thought it weird that no one even try to get on board the plane or even notice it. She crept as nifty as possible without being seen and climbed up the stairs into the plane. As soon as she set foot on the plane floor and closed the door, the jet plane immediately took off without warning. She realized that the plane was on auto-pilot and was quite impressed to see that this plane was programmed to react specifically on her body heat and chemistry, which is why it took off as soon as she was on board. There was food and drinks in a compartment but she wasn't in a mood to dine.

            While she was driving the jet ski down west, she started to contemplate again what would've happened if she hadn't stood up that grudge-holder Johannesburg. She could've just had a simple dance with him or so, strike up a good conversation and maybe even become good friends if not a couple. She could've just go with the 'first come, first serve' basis and avoid all this from happening. None of this would've happened if it weren't for her 'innocent fun'. Sam and Alex wouldn't be into this mess if she had just gone to that silly Winter Prom Night with him. If only she could…

            Her thoughts were cut short when she noticed a few cabins a couple of feet in front of her. She stopped the jet ski and got off to check them out. She remembered Johannesburg's message saying that she was to enter the first cabin she saw, but she had seen both cabins at the same time. She decided to check the cabins inside. She crept towards one of the cabins and noticed that it was pretty much abandoned with frost almost everywhere and the furniture inside seemed like it had been there for the last century or so. She went to the other cabin and could see that this cabin looked pretty homey and warm, as if someone was living in it and was out for skiing or something. Both cabins were unoccupied and she wasn't sure which one was the real cabin Johannesburg could be hiding in. Both of them seemed like they could be disguised to distract people.

            Just when she thought she wasn't able to figure it out, she noticed something out of the ordinary. She could feel a slight rumbling under her feet, like machines running tediously. She walked towards the abandoned-looking cabin and felt the same rumbling too. It was as if they were in line and connected to each other. She took a look at the homey cabin and the abandoned one and back again before she took a few steps to the middle, locating herself between the two cabins. There, she felt the rumbling solely focused there and was the most distinctive. She knew she had finally reached Johannesburg's hideout.

            "I'm here."

            As if by cue, the whole earth shook and the snow around her parted. The cabins descended into the snowy earth and in their place was a huge iron plate which Clover was standing on that stretched as far as the distance of the cabins. A glass compartment came out from around where Clover was standing and engulfed her, keeping her in like a glass prison. Not that Clover was perturbed about all this; she was, after all, an Ice Queen. It descended down, taking Clover with it. As the so-called lift brought her lower and lower into the depths of Poland underground, she could see Johannesburg's secret lab clearer. When her ride down finally stopped, she noticed that she was surrounded by huge hunks of gadgets and scientific stuff so advanced that I myself can't even explain. Even WOOHPS's gadgets seemed like toddlers' toys here.

            "Welcome! Welcome to my humble home, Clover!"

            Clover turned towards the voice and saw that it was Johannesburg Robert Wilkinson, in the flesh. His Ron-like red hair and green eyes hadn't changed a bit, and he looked just as handsome as he was during Georgia High. He was wearing a nice long-sleeved shirt with a vest to match, and a pair of branded-looking trousers. He went over to a huge keyboard and pressed a few buttons and immediately, the glass compartment disappeared back into the iron plate. Clover stepped out of the iron plate and gave a sideways glance at it.

            "Nice toy. Jerry could use one of these."

            "Sorry for the mess, sweet Clover," Johannesburg said, smiling politely. "I was kinda hooked up on things."

            "Where are Sam and Alex?" Clover got right down to business.

            "Why the rush? Don't worry, they're pretty fine. No need to be in such a hurry about things. Come, let's have some tea while we talk. Oh, and lose the spy clothes. No need for formality."

            So saying, another glass compartment slammed itself around Clover and she was immediately engulfed by white steam. After a few minutes later, the glass compartment ascended back where it came from and Clover found herself dressed in a sky-blue one piece dress that had sparkles on the lower half of it. She recognized it as the dress she wore during the Winter Prom Night in Georgia High. Johannesburg smiled with pride.

            "Brings back memories, does it? You looked so pretty in that dress, and you still do now."

            "You seriously have a thing for glass containers now, don't you, Johannesburg?"

            "Please, call me Joe. Everyone in the centre calls me that. Come, let's chat."

            Clover followed Johannesburg—Joe—up an escalator and went all the way into a room that looked exactly like the homey-looking cabin she just saw. She looked out of the window and could see the plain outskirts of Poland. Before she could ask, Joe had already answered her.

            "What you see here right now is my private quarters—the original items of everything you saw at the cabin. What you saw at the cabin is a photographic version. There's a photographic projectile system connected to this room and the cabin. Whatever is here will be projected into that cabin just to keep away prying people. And it is break-in proof. The best part is even though we're here, the projectile system will still maintain its main photographic program. No one will ever know who's here and see what's happening."

            "What about the abandoned-looking one?" Clover asked.

            "Oh, that _is_ an abandoned cabin. I just built another one next to it. Please, have a seat."

            Clover gave him a cold sideways glance before sitting on the sofa opposite him. The atmosphere was pretty calm save the background playing a love song out of nowhere. Another gadget of Joe, she presumed. Joe poured some tea for the both of them and took a sip from his.

            "How long has it been, Clover? 4 years?"

            "Yeah, about that long," Clover replied, sipping her tea. "You've grown slightly taller after all these years."

            "Had a growth spurt when I was in college. How are you doing right now?"

            "Pretty much cold and bland, thanks to you."

            "My virus worked pretty well, didn't it?" Joe grinned with satisfaction.

            "Too well, I suppose. You almost killed me and you made me lose my normal life and my friends. Why do you have to do this, Joe?" Clover asked, her icy tone not having any effect on Joe one bit.

            "You know perfectly well why I'm doing this," Joe replied, his polite face replaced with a dark aura in his green eyes.

            "It was just a lousy prom night. Lots of my friends stood up their boys on prom nights and the boys didn't exactly react the way you did."

            "Well, everyone is different and so am I," Joe hissed. "I'm not the kind of guy who would just take everything in and let people like you get away with murder! You should be taught a lesson!"

            "All for a lost date on prom night? You are sick, Joe," Clover huffed, her cold tone finally getting into Joe. Joe stood up abruptly.

            "It's not just a prom night! This is my pride we're talking about! I ditched all the other girls just to ask you out for that prom night! I had a crush on you ever since I came into Georgia High and met you! I wanted to make you my prom date and probably even my girlfriend, and I have ignored all potential girls just for you! And yet you stood me up for some Hawaiian transfer kid! You agreed to go to the prom night with me and yet you changed your mind at the last minute! You have betrayed my trust and my love, Clover! You didn't care about my feelings one bit! Do you even realize that?!"

            Clover just stared quietly and coldly at Joe, although inside she just wanted to defend her side of the tale.

            "Since you're being so icy cold to me that prom night, I thought of making you an Ice Queen literally. I was the one who sneaked into the room that kept the secret anti-depression medicine and stole it. It wasn't too hard. I only had to stay back after work and wait until no one even notices me, then break some codes on the security cameras, wear certain clothes that won't leave any clues that'll link to me and just simply play innocent when they interrogate me."

            "I can see that you've done a slight modification on the anti-depression medicine," Clover commented. "You've made it so anti-depressant that not a single emotion can go through me."

            "Of course. This has been my greatest work yet," Joe said smugly. "During that prom night, I stole the cup you used to drink punch from and kept it in my house, using your DNA to perform loads of experiments. Most of them failed, until that anti-depression medicine came along. First, I stole some pills from the medicine and did a very in-depth research. I carefully tried different methods and different experiments and I even multiplied your DNA so that it'll be enough for me to experiment on.

            "When your little friend Mandy called in for her little science project, I knew the time was right to put my experiment to use. I stole the rest of medicine later and brought it to Mandy's house and fixed everything. She had no idea I was putting the hush-hush anti-depression medicine into her stink gas. The rest is history."

            "Judging by Mandy's IQ level, I can tell she doesn't have a clue of what you're doing," Clover muttered. "I get the idea. You've succeeded. You got what you wanted. Now where's Sam and Alex?"

            "Correction. I only got half of what I wanted," Joe said as he pushed a button that activated the wall behind him to slide into the floor. In its place revealed a room as advanced as the underground lab she first set foot in and she could see Sam and Alex looking just like the picture attachment from her Com-powder. The only thing different was that their faces were getting bluer and the water at their lower half was frozen with the ice slowly climbing up their hips. Alex was the first to be awakened by the noise of the sliding wall and strained to open her eyes.

            "C…Clo…ver…? Clover?" Alex breathed in astonishment.

            Sam opened her eyes as well and was also surprised to see Clover standing there looking at them with her ever familiar cold eyes, but she was too numb with cold to say a word.

            "You see, Clover? You've caused all this. If you hadn't stood me up, none of this would've happened. Your friends could be at home enjoying popcorn and movie instead of here. It's all your fault!"

            Clover looked at Sam and Alex tied to the pole. Her eyes trailed along the long cables that connected to the controls of the freezer-like machine she saw in the picture attachment. The generator was on and the digital screen that showed the temperature of the ice was reading -15 and the number increased—she counted mentally—every 20 seconds.

            "Let them go," Clover ordered coldly. "They've got nothing to do with this."

            "Oh, I will, don't you worry," Joe replied as he walked over towards the controls. "Only if you do something for me."

            "No…No, Clover, don't make any deals with him…" Sam finally was able to breathe out her words. Her tone was quivering badly due to the cold.

            "We came here…to find a cure…Don't worry about us…" Alex begged, her body slightly shaking. Clover could see that as soon as Sam and Alex regained consciousness, so did their senses become alert towards the coldness around them. She had to do something quick.

            "Just let them go, Joe. They're not worth to be sacrificed for me," Clover tried her luck in reasoning again.

            "No," Joe replied indignantly. "Not unless you do something for me."

            Clover shifted her gaze from Sam and Alex at the pole (who were shaking their heads weakly in protest) to Joe and back again. She knew what she had to do and what she had to say.

            "Alright. Name your price. Just let them go."

            Joe chuckled triumphantly before saying, "I want you to go down on your knees and apologize to me."

            "That's it?" Clover asked, her face a stony cold but her mind quizzical.

            "And don't give me that face. I want you to beg for my forgiveness and I want you to mean it. Really, really mean it, you get me?"

            "No! No, Clover, don't do it! Don't apologize to him!" Alex exclaimed in horror.

           "She's right! You can't apologize to him now, not when the virus is still in you!" Sam exclaimed too, fearing the worse. "You can't show any emotion unless you're cured, or else you'll…"

            "Shut up, you bitch!" Joe snapped at her as he pressed the button to increase the speeding process of the freezing, causing the girls to groan in biting cold pain. "This is her decision, not yours!"

            "Clover, please, don't do it! I beg you! You'll die! It's not worth it!" Alex begged, hoping that Clover would change her mind. Clover continued to stare at her best friends with her cold expression. She knew it would be the death of her if she ever show the least bit of her emotion, since she's been emotionless for so long. But her best friends, the only best spy friends she could ever have in the entire world, had risked their lives and their necks just to help her find a cure and to come all the way down here for an antidote. It was time for her to return that favour to them.

            "Sorry, Sam, Alex," Clover said as her cold face slowly softened into a sad, lost look. "I have to do this."

            With that, Clover fell onto her knees and went on all fours before she started apologizing. She apologized for standing Joe up and apologized for all the nasty things she said to him when she told him about going with the Hawaiian guy. She apologized for being so stupid and admitted that she had caused all this trouble. She admitted that if it weren't for her, none of this would've happened. She apologized truly from the bottom of her heart and apologized like she had never apologized before.

            And as she apologized for the last time, she shed a tear.

A/N: OH NO~! She shouldn't have done that! What'll they do? What'll they do? *Rants and raves like Courage the Cowardly Dog* \0o0/ Reviews plz! 


	10. The Sacrifice

A/N: I'm seriously beginning to worry the safety and the life of Clover. Wanna know if she pulled through? Just carry on reading! Sorry for the lateness. I'm trying to work 2 chappies at once, and besides, I simply have too much fics to complete!! Ugh! The burden of creative minds --

Disclaimer: I do not own Totally Spies and its characters, although I do wanna become one of them.

                                                ICE QUEEN OF THE CENTURY

            Clover suddenly couldn't breathe. As soon as she shed that tear, her lungs began to burn and her throat felt as if it was being strangled. The muscles in her whole body felt as if they were going in and out in knots and that her whole body was beginning to feel numb—paralyzing her slowly from head to toe. There were loads of things going on inside her body she couldn't keep track of, but she knew one thing's for sure.

            She had lost her battle with the Ice Queen virus. She was going down.

            Then, almost as soon as it happened, the seizure stopped. Blood began to trickle out of the corner of her lips as she fell slowly towards the floor. A slight thud was heard and that was it. Clover remained lying there on her own small pool of blood without a single movement. Joe watched quietly for a few seconds at the unmoving Clover, ignoring Sam and Alex's frantic screams behind him, before closing her blue eyes and picking her up in his arms.

           "I am a man of my word, Clover," Joe muttered as he reached over to the controls and pressed the defrosting button. Almost immediately, the biting cold ice around Sam and Alex melted and the clasps that held them together on the pole were opened automatically. Sam and Alex's suddenly loose body fell into the water and it took them quite an effort to climb out of the tank.

            "How could you, Joe…? How could you?!" Sam hissed as tears started welling up in her green eyes. "You forced Clover to kill herself! You psychopath!"

            "Clover's dead because of you!" Alex spat at Joe as well, already in the verge of crying. "You've already got her infected with the virus! She'd suffered long enough! What more do you want?!"

            "It still aches to see my crush suffer like this," Joe said, cleaning the blood from the corner of Clover's lips, as if it was all just a normal matter for him. "And it does hurt to see her this way, but she must be taught a lesson. No one who hurts me will ever get away with murder."

            "She never murdered you!" Sam exclaimed. "She never even touched a hair on you! She was right—you got so worked up just because of a stupid rejected prom night! You are the murderer, not her!!"

            "Say whatever you want. I finally have her. That's all I need."

            "Have her?" Alex asked. "What do you mean…"

            "Step back! Don't come near us!" Joe stopped Alex and Sam, who were trying to get up and go towards him, at their tracks. "Just keep your distance!"

            "You've already have your revenge," Sam said. "Clover's dead like you wanted. What more do you want from her?"

            Joe didn't reply, but pressed a button on the control device of the freezer-like machine. The machine drained out the water inside the tank and folded itself up automatically. It moved out to one side of a corner and in its place came forth a cylinder glass tank. It seemed that everything in Joe's secret domain was automatic and powered by the push of a button. Typical home of a genius. Joe carried the lifeless Clover to the tank and placed her on a standing position in it. Sam and Alex watched in shock as Joe filled the tank with water with Clover in it. After pressing some buttons on the control attached to the tank, the water froze and Clover was soon seen standing frozen solid in an encasing of ice.

            Sam forced her numb, weak body to get up and raced towards the tank. Joe did not stop her. He moved aside to let her come towards it. Alex followed suite, struggling to move after being too long in the ice. Sam yelled and pounded at the tank, trying to wake Clover up in vain. She was standing there—frozen, unmoving—in her icy tomb. Her eyes were closed softly, as if she was only in a deep sleep. With her Winter Prom Night dress on and her paling face, she really looked like an Ice Queen hibernating in her icy cold bed waiting for winter to arrive.

            "You get her out! You get her out of there, you bastard!" Sam demanded.

            "Can't do that. No one else will have her except me," Joe replied, his face as unconcerned as Clover did when she was having the virus. "She is mine, and mine alone. She will remain in there and with me forever."

            "You are sick! You are so sick!" Alex said in fury, her tone full of hate. She moved towards Joe's work desk in the middle of the room and picked up a chair. She flung it with all her might at the tank, wanting to break it and free Clover from it, but unfortunately, the tank didn't even have a scratch.

            "Sorry to disappoint you, Alex," Joe said as he stroked the tank. "This glass is very resistant, that means it's fire-proof, bullet-proof, crash-proof and everything in between. Nothing can break this thing. I made it myself."

            "Why can't you just let her go? Why can't you just leave her alone? Why are you doing all this?" Sam asked as she fell onto her knees beside the tank. Joe picked up a remote control from his work desk and smirked.

            "Because I love her."

            With that, he pressed a button on the remote control and in came two hovering metallic seats. They scooped both Sam and Alex up and strapped them on tight, making their struggle futile. As Sam and Alex yelled their protests and demanded to be let go, Joe walked towards them calmly and smiled blissfully for the first time in his 4 years of grudge.

            "I hope you've enjoyed your stay in my humble home. Now if you'll excuse me, Clover and I have a lot of catching up to do."

            So saying, he pressed another button on the remote control and Sam and Alex immediately disappeared into thin air, only to reappear again in the cold foot of the mountain where they just climbed up to. They were still in a daze when they saw far, far away at a distance huge white, billowing smoke. It grew more and more, and thicker and thicker until something came in view from it. They saw that it was a jet plane, but it was no jet plane they have ever seen before. Not even WOOHPS could build such a jet plane so hi-tech in structure and built like that. Even I myself, the writer, cannot explain it. Evidently, it was the best creation this genius Joe ever made. It zoomed real fast towards south before Sam and Alex even got out of their daze.

            "Quick!" Sam exclaimed, breaking herself free from the straps of the weird craft and getting on her feet. "We have to go after that jet plane! He's taking Clover away!"

            Suddenly, when they were all mentally charged up and ready to go, Sam and Alex went weak all over and fell onto the icy snow. The bitter cold of the snowy ground seriously bit through their bones. That's when they realized that they were reduced to their underclothes. They were still too numb to realize that they have been soaked in that freezer-like tank for a very, very long time with only their bra and underwear on and nothing else. Their bodies that were warm before after being out of the tank for quite some time were immersed back into the cold and they were experiencing irregular body temperature change. No matter how they tried, they just couldn't get back on their feet. Their whole bodies were getting a mild frostbite and they couldn't do anything about it. They cried bitterly as they watched helplessly at the jet plane that was moving further and further away from them.

            Somehow, they began to deeply understand how Clover felt like when she was having her seizures.

            Without warning, they felt a few pairs of hands on them. In the midst of confusion, they thrashed and screamed and yelled, demanding to be let go, thinking that they were under attack. Soon they heard voices soothing and reassuring that they weren't enemies and were here to help. When they looked up to see to whom the voices belonged to, the first thing that caught their eyes were the logo of WOOHPS on the right side of the strangers outfits. As their mind clear, they saw that they were surrounded by members of WOOHPS, two of them bringing a rug each to wrap Sam and Alex' cold bodies. The rest of the team was on another TINY TIM and they were bringing down stretchers for them. Jerry came in front of the team.

            "Girls, are you alright?" Jerry asked as he urged his men to hurry up with the stretcher.

            "Cl...Clover...She's...She's with Joe..." Alex breathed, choking in her tears.

            "Joe?"

            "Johannesburg," Sam explained, wrapping the rug tighter around herself. "He's got her. He's got Clover and he's headed south..."

            Jerry nodded and got into the TINY TIM. He ordered the pilot to chase the jet plane Joe was on. He turned on a few buttons on the controls of the craft and a beeping sound could be heard and a beeping light could be seen on the screen. He had never told anyone, not even the girls, this scheme, but he had someone secretly sneaking into Clover's home about a few days after Clover claimed her resignation from WOOHPS. The agent crept into Clover's closet while she was sleeping and turned the Com-powder back on and made a few adjustments to it. Jerry had ordered him to put in a tracking device into the Com-powder's mainframe and keep it under silent mode. He was careful not to accidentally call Clover during Sam and Alex's missions (he almost did, 'coz he was so used to it) yet deep down inside him, as soon as she left WOOHPS, he was worried that something bad might happen to her, which prompted him to modify the Com-powder. This was also the reason how he was able to locate the girls in this cold, snowy plains. Only that he got there a little too late.

            Not this time. He was going to get Clover and save Clover once and for all. He thought he had lost his previous spy girls 7 years ago and it took him quite a long time and effort to start employing new spies. Now one of his favourite spies has been taken away again and never will he let her slip away from him again. He urged the pilot to fly faster, fearing the worst.

            Soon, Joe's advanced jet plane could be seen. Jerry clenched his fists and said, "Try and get beside his craft. I'm going in."

            The pilot nodded and tried to accelerate TINY TIM to the plane. But no matter how fast he went, Joe's plane was faster. It was as if Joe knew he was tailing him and had switched the engine to uber fast. He was often about a few feet away from him.

            "Sir, I can't seem to fly this craft any faster," the pilot said in a slight panic. "He is going faster than TINY TIM and I'm already accelerated it to the max."

            "Never mind. Just try and go as fast as you can. I'll figure out a way to get in."

            He went to the back of TINY TIM and ransacked one of the cabinets. He dragged out a jetpack backpack and put it on. He grabbed an Expandable Cable Belt and made a dash for the emergency exit door of TINY TIM. He dragged the door open, feeling the chilly wind blowing at his face mercilessly. He aimed the Expandable Cable Belt at the jet plane's wing and shot the cable and it stuck fast onto the wing. Many experiences in spy missions before becoming the head of WOOHPS gave Jerry this advantage. He then activated the jetpack backpack and jumped off TINY TIM, holding onto belt tight as he let himself be taken away from the craft.

            He continued to be suspended on air, flying forward as he 'hitched a ride' using Joe's jet plane wing. The jetpack backpack was able to keep his body steady from being to thrown back from the jet plane. When he decided that he had enough sky-gliding for one day, he pressed the button on the belt and the cable began to pull itself back to the belt, taking him with it. With one nimble move, Jerry jumped onto the wing and held on for his dear life before inching his way slowly towards the emergency door. He pulled and tugged at the door but it just won't budge. He finally resolved to use the Laser Lipstick and burn his way into the jet plane. Thankfully, the door was no match for the laser and jerry was bale to burn the lock down and barge into the jet plane.

            Jerry didn't bother to use stealth anymore—since he had already made a racket by trashing the door. He took out his stun gun and headed straight towards the front. There, he saw Joe still sitting on his seat calmly, flying the jet plane as if there was nothing interesting going on. Jerry aimed his gun at Joe and pulled the safety pin.

            "Stay right there, Johannesburg. You are under arrest."

            "Please, sir, call me Joe," Joe replied as he switched the jet plane to auto-pilot mode and turned around calmly with his hands raised.

            "You are under arrest, Joe. Surrender now and you might get a lighter sentence."

            "I'm afraid I can't do that, sir. Clover and I have a lot of things to catch up. We haven't been together for about 4 years now, please be considerate."

            "Where is Clover?" Jerry demanded as he came closer towards Joe, his eyes shifting around to look for Clover's whereabouts.

            "She's just right here," Joe said as he pressed a button from one of his controls among dozens of controls that ran this plane. Jerry turned around when he heard the sound of a sliding door. He soon saw Clover encased in her icy tomb fitted inside a cabinet just a few feet behind Jerry. Jerry stared at her wide-eyed for a few seconds or so. She looked so pale, so sickeningly pale, so...dead...

            Suddenly, Jerry heard another click from behind. He turned around and saw that Joe had removed his jacket and revealed a set of grenades taped onto his shirt. He had a ring around his left middle finger attaching loads of strings that were all tied to the safety pins of the grenades. He also had another remote control held in his right hand. Jerry was quite taken aback at upon this sight.

            "Don't do anything stupid, Joe. It's not worth it."

            "Oh, it is worth every second, sir," Joe hissed maliciously, his face a suicidal look. "I can't let you arrest me and take my Clover away from me. I can't let you do that. Clover and I are meant to be together. She just couldn't see it. I was just trying to knock some sense into her."

            "By getting her infected with the virus you created and killing her? That doesn't seem like a very gentleman thing to do."

            "So I enhanced the effects of the anti-depressant medicine and make it very sensitive to emotions, big deal. Cavemen use clubs to hit cavewomen and make them fall in love with them. I'm considered much gentler than that. It wasn't easy to get her to come to me, but I've finally succeeded. We're gonna get married at Russia where my great-great-great grandfather used to live and that'll give us plenty of time to rekindle the old flame."

            "That's very nice, Joe, but there are many ways to rekindle old flames, not like this. Now, put down whatever you're holding right now and..."

            "Don't come any closer!" Joe warned as he tightened the grip of the strings around the safety pins and held the remote control higher. "I've rigged the cylinder with another bomb and once I press this button on the control, Clover and I will go sky-high, along with you!"

            "Calm down, Joe! You don't wanna do this!"

            "Oh yes, I do! I'm not going to let you tear me and Clover apart! I'm going down with her and no one's stopping me! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!"

            With that, Joe got ready to pull the strings and pressed the button on the remote. Jerry quickly fired a shot at him with his stun gun. The impact sent him hitting the controls and accidentally pressing the descend button. Without warning, the jet plane was sent plummeting down like a cannon ball from above. Joe was hit unconscious and Jerry was left alone to fend and handle the controls only Joe knew about. Seeing that trying to maneuver the craft was futile, he decided to save whoever was on board. He tried to break the cylinder Clover was in but it was as tough as Joe had said. He fumbled with the controls on the cylinder and, out of dumb luck, was able to melt the ice that encased Clover and open the cylinder. He quickly tucked Clover under one arm and Joe under another and made a dash out of the emergency door. With much effort, he activated the jetpack backpack and jumped...

            The sea rescue department and the members of WOOHPS surrounded the jet plane that had crashed into the Pacific Sea. The speed of the jet plane had actually taken them far away from Poland and across the sea. They were all gathered around the smoking jet plane, trying to bring down the fire and keep any oil from overflowing into the sea. Jerry was on a WOOHPS rescue boat handcuffing the still unconscious Joe after removing all the grenades from his body.

            "What are the other spies' conditions?" Jerry asked one of the men on the boat.

            "Agent Sam and Alex are warm and well, sir." the man replied. "The medics have stabilized their body temperature and cured whatever ailment they have contracted during their capture at Poland. They are now in the WOOHPS sick bay."

            "Good," Jerry nodded. "You know what to do with this criminal. Right now, we must get back to WOOHPS A.S.A.P. She needs to be incubated—and fast."

A/N: Oh no...I feel the worse for Clover. What'll become of her? Stay tuned to find out! Reviews plz!


	11. The End

A/N: What will become of Clover? Will she be saved or will she be dead—dead cold—for good? Continue reading and you will soon find out. Oh, and this fic will be quite long, coz this will the FINAL CHAPPIE!!!

Disclaimer: I do not own Totally Spies and its characters, although I do wanna become one of them.

                                                ICE QUEEN OF THE CENTURY

            Everyone was gathered in the medic lab, looking either really sorry or lost. The whole atmosphere was silent and no one uttered a word. All that could be heard were the sounds of beeping on the heartbeat machine. It seemed like funeral session or some sort, but they weren't mourning for someone dead. They were mourning for someone living.

            They were mourning for Clover.

            When Clover was brought in into the medic lab, she looked far worse than dead. Fortunately she was still alive, but the virus within her when she shed that tear, after being spreading silently out large throughout her body, caused an immediate reaction and caused her brain to shutdown, resulting into brain-dead. Nothing could wake her up, nothing could move her, and certainly nothing could ever bring her blue eyes back open.

            They had to keep her in a cylinder tank filled with ice cold water because she couldn't be incubated back to normal temperature. A single heat on her caused her heart to go rapidly slow all of a sudden, closing in to death. She almost couldn't make it to WOOHPS because of the surrounding atmosphere that was bringing her temperature back to normal, and in the process, slowing the heartbeat rate. They had to wear a breathing mask on her for the rest of the journey. Coldness was the only thing that could keep her alive now, and with WOOHPS technology, the ice cold water she was in is breathable, as in you can still breathe normally although submerged inside this water. But still, nothing could bring her back.

            She was gone. Not physically, but spiritually, she was.

            Perhaps the people that felt the most grief were her best friends Sam and Alex and also their boss Jerry. Sam and Alex were pretty much high and dry and warmer, now that they've finally returned to their homeland Beverly Hills, but their hearts were still feeling the chills at seeing Clover suspending in the cylinder tank without ever able to hang out with them like they used to and going out in missions like old times.

            "Is...Is the virus finally gone, Jerry?" Alex asked tentatively.

            "No. It's still there," Jerry replied. "But after giving out such a big impact on Clover, it's now laying there dormant. You can say it has used up most of its energy and pretty much harmless to her."

            "Isn't there anything you can do to wake her up, Jerry?" Sam asked, her heart still hopeful that there would be a cure for Clover.

            "No, Sam. I'm afraid there's nothing I can do," Jerry apologized. "Her condition is brain-dead. No one has ever had a cure for brain-dead and not even the finest technology in WOOHPS had ever succeeded in reviving brain-dead people. I'm sorry to say that this time, my hands are tied."

            "She risked her life to save us…" Alex sobbed as she fell onto her knees. "She knew that one single emotion...could kill her, and yet she...she did it all the same...she apologized to that bastard with all her heart and…he killed her! He killed her, Jerry! He killed our best friend! Jailing him is not enough! You have to sentence him to death!"

            "Alex, calm down," Jerry said. "Everything must go to procedure. We cannot just simply take anyone's life as we want it."

            "I have to agree with Alex," Sam said darkly. "He must not go unpunished. He must die. He must pay for what he did to Clover."

            "Where is he? Where is that son of a bitch?! I wanna kill him with my bare hands!! I want to snuff the lights out of him myself!!" Alex suddenly stood up and grabbed a scalpel from a tray of one of the surgery tables there. Everyone was shocked. They tried to calm Alex down but she was bent on wanting to take Joe's life. She demanded to be taken to the prison confinement—where criminals arrested by WOOHPS are kept before being sent off to a real prison—and threatened to slit and scalp Joe with the scalpel. For once, Sam didn't do anything to stop her. It was surprising because she was always the reasonable person of the team.

            In the end, Jerry had no choice but to ask someone to sedate Alex. As soon as the medication went to effect, Jerry looked accusingly at Sam and asked, "Why didn't you stop her? Why didn't you try and calm her down?"

           "Because it's not worth to stop her. Whatever she wants to do with Joe is my sentiments exactly," Sam replied coldly.

            "Listen to yourself, girls! You all are supposed to be the best girls in my team! You shouldn't be doing things that are influenced by your feelings! I've told you that everything has to go by procedure, not by blind hit! You're acting like unprofessional babies! And you, Sam, listen to what you're saying! Don't you know that you are acting just like Clover?"

            That hit her really bad. Sam had never realized that this Joe character was really getting into them. She was shocked that she had never realized what her tone was like. So cold, so emotionless, so lack of mercy…just exactly like Clover when she was with the Ice Queen virus. She, too, fell to her knees and sobbed. Alex cried silent tears as the medication continued to take effect. Jerry walked over and hugged them both, hushing them.

            "There, there now, girls. Don't feel bad. Although Clover isn't going to be with us physically, she will always be in our hearts. You can come here and visit her anytime you want, no exceptions. She wouldn't want to see you like this now, would she?"

            In the midst of him comforting the girls, Jerry also shed a few tears of his own.

            Joe was sitting in his cell waiting for the day he would be taken away from WOOHPS to Pilas, a prison somewhere in the 3rd World, a secret prison so-called tougher than Alcatraz the world's toughest prison. Only a few people from the government throughout the world knew its existence, and that includes WOOHPS. He was deemed guilty and also considered too intelligent and too dangerous even to be in Alcatraz, so he had to be in Pilas where there is no one he could get to ever.

            He could be seen deep in his thoughts, thinking about what he had done. He remembered the day he was so humiliated when Clover went up to him with that Hawaiian transfer student in her hands and told him that she had someone else in mind. He remembered the rage that burned through his heart as he stood there and watched Clover dancing with the Hawaiian guy and him refusing to dance with anyone else although they approached him willingly. He remembered his determination and his feverish attempt to ace his class and be even better than his IQ expected to be, and he sure remembered the thrill of finding out that the place he worked for was going to create the anti-depressant medicine, the thrill of sneaking in and stealing the medicine and the joy of experimenting and succeeding in creating the Ice Queen virus.

            Then he remembered the look on Clover's face as she decided to sacrifice her life to save her friends. That sad, faraway look, that longing pain she was desperate to show. He saw her shed the tear and then the seizure that followed. He remembered the look on Sam and Alex's face when they scolded and cursed and accused him of killing Clover. He knew she was alive when he picked her up—he had felt her pulse and could hear her tiny shallow breathing. Keeping her in that cold ice tank, he made sure that he had the built-in air vent well functioned. He had it all thought out.

            But the looks he had encountered were constantly in his mind: Sam and Alex's accusing face and Clover's sad, faraway eyes. They both locked in his mind like super glue. He just couldn't rub them off his head. Those faces…Those eyes…Filled with so much anger…so much sorrow…

            "Johannesburg Wilkinson?" Joe looked up when he heard his name called. There, in front of him, stood Jerry and a few burly-looking men. He could tell that it was time to go. He only had one last thing to say.

            "Bring Clover back to life."

            The day was spent rather blunt. Sam and Alex were back in Beverly Hills High and since Clover was a no-show, Mandy was gloating all over the guys again. And as expected, the Little I'm-Miss-Popular had asked David out for the Spring Seasons Dance. Not that Sam and Alex mind. They didn't have much of a mood to go for the Spring Seasons Dance anyway, and besides, they owe it to Mandy to give them Joe's name to help save Clover. It took the nice and sweet David quite an effort to persuade Sam and Alex to join the Dance when he found out that they were going to be a no-show as well.

            During the Spring Seasons Dance, not many of the guys were enthusiastic about getting into the dance mood. They were all expecting the Ice Queen Clover to be around to give them the usual cold look when they ask to dance with her and diss them all away like they knew she would. They wanted to see Clover sweep into the hall coldly and not give a damn about them. They didn't know why but they seemed energized whenever she did that and seemed to have a sense of purpose to bring down that cold encasing on her face to give them the feeling of accomplishment. They had that disappointing look on their faces when they found out that Clover wasn't going to attend the dance due to health problems (Sam and Alex were swamped by them when they noticed her absence beforehand and they had to make that white lie).

            Sam and Alex sighed inwardly as they stood near the buffet table looking at the rest of Beverly Hills High enjoying themselves, all dressed up to the nines and having a great time from school life. They didn't bother to dress nice for this occasion—Sam was wearing a spaghetti string light yellow one-piece dress she got for her birthday 2 years ago and Alex a belly-button body-fit black top and a pair of canvas jeans. They didn't bother because they knew that nothing—not even the greatest theme park in the world—can compare with being together as a threesome again. David tried to ask them to dance with him but they refused, much to Mandy's delight. They'd rather stay there being gloomy than going out there and forget about their best friend who was forever confined in that water tank where she would never again come out and breathe the fresh air or speak to them again. It wasn't easy telling another white lie to Clover's mother that her condition was so bad that she had to be hospitalized in a federal hospital until further notice and it wasn't easy to look OK when her mother was bursting into tears feeling so sad about never seeing her daughter again. They wanted to break down and tell her mother the truth but their job wouldn't allow it. They're spies and spies are meant to keep secrets.

            Besides, Clover wouldn't want her mother to know her real condition and risk breaking her heart even further.

            "I still can't get over the fact that we'll never be with Clover like the old times anymore," Alex finally voiced out after a long silence between them.

            "Me too," Sam replied. "But it's no use. Even Jerry said that brain-dead cannot be cured. There's no medical proof that brain-dead could be curable. She has to stay in there for her own safety."

            "If Clover never wakes up, would… Jerry perform euthanasia on her or something?"

            "I don't know, and I don't wanna know. I don't even wanna find out what Jerry will do to her. I just wanna get out of this nightmare and get back to my own life, as in my life before I was a spy."

            "You don't mean to say that you wanna quit WOOHPS?" Alex asked in shock.

            "That's exactly what I'm trying to say," Sam replied determinedly.

            "But…But Clover wouldn't want to see the team split, not especially because of her! She would be so upset!"

            "Well, she's not with us now, is she? I don't wanna go through this life anymore! It's bringing us more sorrow than happiness! Look what Clover has become! I don't want anyone else to end up like her! I don't! It would be much better if everything was the way before, exactly the way before we were even chosen to become spies!"

            "If everything was the way before we're spies, we wouldn't be friends now, would we?"

            Sam and Alex spun round. That voice! That voice so familiar! It was unmistakable. There was nothing to deny. It was…

            "_CLOVER!!!_"

            Sam and Alex almost screamed the whole place down as they saw the ever familiar Clover with her blonde bangs and her blue eyes looking at them with that facial expression they've missed so much. Not the cold face, but the ever glowing, ever emotional face of Clover. They were speechless at first when they saw her standing there wearing the dress Joe wore for her back at Poland.

            "Hey, guys. What is it? You look like you've seen a ghost," Clover grinned a little.

            "We thought you're…How did you…? What did you…? What…?" Sam didn't know where to start asking.

            "Joe came clean," Clover replied, her face looking a bit sorry for Joe. "Before Joe was taken to Pilas, he requested to see me. He claimed that he could cure me, so Jerry, seeing that he's a genius, gave him a shot. He went over to that tank and asked him to take me out."

            "But you can't be out in normal temperature!" Alex exclaimed. "It'll kill you! He should know that! What was he thinking?"

            "Well, beats me whether or not he knew about my condition but when I was taken out of the tank," Clover continued as she fingered a sparkling crystallite-shaped locket that was around her neck, "he took off this locket he was wearing around his neck—funny that I didn't notice this—and put one half into his mouth and the other half into mine. Jerry thought he was trying to give me a last kiss or something, which I think he did, and a few seconds later I woke up to see him unconscious on my thigh."

            "What happened?" Sam asked.

            "Turned out that this locket was his final creation after he was done with the virus. It has the mechanism which enables to transfer any kind of disease from one to another using his 'kissing' technique and leaves the infected one healthy and strong again. He…He actually transferred the Ice Queen virus _and_ brain-dead condition into himself. He's now taking over my place inside that water tank."

            "You mean…he actually sacrificed himself for you…?" Alex was surprised to hear about this side of Joe. Somewhere inside her felt sorry for the mean things she said about him.

            "He really _is_ a genius," Sam said in admiration. "And…he really loves you."

            "Yeah, well," Clover fingered the locket again with a thoughtful look in her eyes. "I really am sorry about the way we turned out to be, and I'm really sorry for getting you guys into this mess."

            "There's nothing to forgive, Clover," Alex said, her eyes brimming with tears while she reached over to hug Clover. "We're just so glad that you—the real you—is finally back."

            Sam was also in tears as she joined in the group hug. It was a touching moment for this threesome as their friendship returned the way it had always been. When they all let go, Sam and Alex were surprised to see Clover back in her cold, emotionless state.

            "What is it? Does it still hurt to feel?" they asked worriedly.

            "No," Clover stole a smile, sticking out her tongue naughtily. "It's just that I'm actually getting all the attention and more cute guys than I ever wanted when I'm with this cold face. I just wanna put it on one last time. Besides, there's a certain I'm-Miss-Popular Mandy I need to settle the score with. See ya!"

            Sam and Alex wanted to stop her because they owed Mandy a favour, but then again, Mandy being nice to them just once cannot justify enough for all the times she had been a jerk to them, so they let her be. Soon, laughter from our green and yellow leather outfit spies could be heard as our red leather outfit spy walked around becoming the Ice Queen everyone was waiting for and making Mandy a total fool of herself.

A/N: THE END! Phew! Wow, that was amazing now, wasn't it? Sorry if I had kept you waiting, but I simply must finish this fic and post it up all together! I did say I wanna do 2 chappies at once now, didn't I? I hope you enjoyed my fic! Ta-ta!


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